

& 



'> 







x° 


. s " ..‘"I 



' r 

°.Z. ' » N 


V 5 '» £ 



t,. V, 


v * r ^. + 

p o ^ ^ % * « i- ■> - *y 

, % 0K S N \.-*°, " A 0 ‘ 

-fU, ,; ^ /, *. t 'V * 

. ISYUfcWJ! ^ V “ <5 

« *V 

C* - W# - 'V ^ ^ A oV <" % 

> *f - s X <\ ^ * 0 V k ^ \G ^ * 

v 1 * * o. r 0 v C 0 * c * ^ 

1 ^ G * c^>v _ y T 



: ^ \ N 




^ v* 


>o 



«>* V 

© o' 


4 *. 

v * 




o ' 5 » « . X * jJ 

\> *<*»,. > £' 
' a * - 5 

° % $ * 

• w> <v 

•% A ' 



A' « 


* V V 




/f 1 s' . v 

■•%. * * ,v\ N . 

'■ ’* *' 


r > 0 * -3 

'. **• v 1 


V 



^ C A - - 

L: A 


V 



^ A? - | 

%■ $ ;' £ 
A> ,p 


° sp ' J ^P. 

'* •>*, -A * ^ 



O ✓ 

^ * 0 N 0 


v 1 

aV * 


if. 





^ c 

C "V. (V 





yfj 

% ^ 


> 


,o v 


- -<• 



^ * <r s 


A v 



r* ^ * 

C** t' — - \ p..’ 

- .V <£*. *y o . \ ^ w u . 

> *v, e '. > ^ 



r^s * 1 

I," \ 0, =.. - 

sf ^ ' Vv ^ + -r, /nu .~ v 

•' -<°° V'- ; / v3'/,.,< 

v * Y * ° * > ,<r oALA 

0 s * ' 


O 


ce C y^*> 

w* / ^ -. 

^ A \ 


4 / 0 - 

-f O 

^ ^ c- 0 X 

% 


aV 

^ ** v ^ vw^ 

* .o' <• a ' % */;, u 

<?' .C 0 ~ 0 * 0 , ’ 

c^ An V , ^l. * 'K{j ■£' ^ * 

; ^ >* ; ■< ^ ^ 

« ,0 o, * ^ 

>r •> <*' 




O 0 

>5 'U 


V' . . ,;v ’ - v - - 

* ^ V 'Y C *J«fe- V<* v * 

>*» l ... _ 

* «v - 



y ^ . 


* ^0 

^ .x N r; 



> 0 ^, 


y ^ 

- i 


✓ \ ^ - 
° l t, * S s A . ^ y 0 o X 

1 i* H* — % °o 0 0- „‘° 

* , <s 

° o x 

A ^ >- *6 

XsZs* 7 IV ^ \ * 

. « » r # ✓ N 3 V -' <* O > cj^ i 

* ' -O' '^ . * 'I M o ^ , v * If I 1 * ' A V 

)t- s' ' ZJ „ N V N *'*"' > " .9* ' 

; V s *fj ^ 53. 5* ° -V 

V- V, * ri\ \>X /In ^ «£- -* * 





\ 


0 c 


^ o> 

% 

°o G 0> / 

^ o^ : 

^ c< '. 


J> * . „ t ._ 

^ ' - '"7f^s\\ 

‘ -° C */^. ^ N V* 


v * ' * 0 ^ > 




■ , , ^ % \ 

' l s s 

^ ' * A s A v I « k . 

* -O . «o . x ^ 




























/ 




* 






c 


* 




ZB 


* 


> 







mrn 






io. 48 


30 Cts. 



Copyright, 1885, 

' Harper & Brothers 

ssmmnmmmmmmmmmmmmm 


January 8, 1886 


Subscription Price 
per Year, 52 Numbers, $1$ 


Entered at the Post-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter 


CABIN AND GONDOLA 


BY 





Booh yon may hold readily in your hand are the most useful , after all 

Dr. Johnson 


* > 

•n i {• 


*8 > 


NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

1886 


HARPER’S HANDY SERIES. 

Latest Issues. 

NO. GENTS. 

9. John Needham’s Double. A Novel. By Joseph Hatton 25 

10. The Mahdi. By James Darmesteter. With Portraits 25 

41. The World op London. By Count Vasili 25 

12. The Waters of Hercules. A Novel.... 25 

13. She’s All the World to Me. A Novel. By Hall Caine 25 

14. A Hard Knot. A Novel. By Charles Gibbon 25 

15. Fish and Men in the Maine Islands. By W. H. Bishop. Ill’d. 25 

16. Uncle Jack, and Other Stories. By Walter Besant 25 

- 17. Mrs. Keith’s Crime. A Record. By Mrs. W. K. Clifford 25 

18. Souvenirs of Some Continents. By Archibald Forbes, LL.D. . 25 

19. Cut by the County. A Novel. By M. E. Braddon 25 

20. No Medium. A Novel. By Annie Thomas (Mrs. Pender Cudlip). 25 

21. Paul Crew’s Story. By A. C. Carr 25 

22. Old-World Questions and New World Answers. By Daniel 

Pidgeon, F.G.S., Assoc. Inst. C.E 25 

23. In Peril and Privation. By James Payn. Illustrated 25 

24. The Flower of Doom, &c. By M. Beth am-Ed wards 25 

25. The Luck of the Darrells. A Novel. By James Payn 25 

26. Houp-la. A Novelette. By John Strange Winter. Illustrated. 25 

27. Self-Doomed. A Novel. Bv B. L. Farjeon 25 

28. Malthus and IIis Work. By James Bonar, M.A 25 

29. The Dark House. A Novel. By G. Manville Fenn 25 

30. The Ghost’s Touch, and Other Stories. By Wilkie Collins 25 

31. The Royal Mail. By James Wilson Hyde. Illustrated 25 

32. The Sacred Nuoget. A Novel. By B. L. Farjeon 25 

33. Primus in Indis.- A Romance. By M. J. Colquhoun 25 

34. Musical History. By G. A. Macfarren 25 

35. In Quarters with the 1 25th Dragoons. By J. S. Winter 25 

36. Goblin Gold. A Novel. By May Crommelin 25 

37. The Wanderings of Ulysses. By Prof. C. Witt. Translated 

by Frances Younghusband 25 

38. A Barren Title. A Novel. By T. W. Speight 25 

39. Us: An Old-fashioned Story. By Mrs. Molesworth. IllM.... 25 

40. Ounces of Prevention. By Titus Munson Coan, A.M., M.D. . . . 25 

41. Half-Way. An Anglo-French Romance 25 

4§. Christmas Angel. A Novel. By B. L. Farjeon. Illustrated... 25 

43. Mrs. Dymond. A Novel. By Miss Thackeray . 25 

44. The Bachelor Vicar of Newforth. A Novel. By Mrs. J. Har- 

court-Roe 'n\ 25 

45. In the Middle Watch. A Novel. By W. Clark Russell. .... 25 

46. Tiresias, and Other Poems. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 25 

47. Last Days at Apswich. A Novel 25 

48. Cabin and Gondola. By Charlotte Dunning 30 

Other volumes in preparation. 

jeSf* Harper & Brotheur will send any of the above works by mail , postage pre- 
paid, , to any part of the United Stales or Canada, on receipt of the price. 


CONTENTS 


page 

Pam 3 

Mrs. Brayfield 30 

Told Between the Acts 47 

In a Cracker’s Cabin 5P 

Decker’s Second Wife 70 

The Soul-Sisters 100 

Annina 132 

At the Maison Dobbe 145 

Whither Curiosity Led 156 

By Parna’s Grave 178 

“Mees” 188 


Note. — These stories, with the exception of the one entitled 
cl Pam,” which now is published for the first time, appeared origi- 
nally in “ Lippincott's Magazine ,” “ The Atlantic Monthly,” and 
“ The Parisian,” a weekly journal, published in English, at Paris. 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


PAM. 

PART I. 

Although the sun had begun to take the chill out 
of the early morning air, Mammy Sue and her black- 
and-tan tribe still huddled close to a fire that had 
been kindled in the open space before the palace 
door. Over the flames hung a great iron pot, full of 
a steaming something which sent up a greasy smell 
to mingle with the sweetness of the yellow jasmine, 
and the smoke curled away through the long-leaved 
banana plants, through the glowing orange-trees, and 
was finally lost in the palmettos on the river bank. 
Five or six lean dogs basked in the warmth of the 
crackling fire along with the pickaninnies; two or 
three black hogs waddled near, and turkeys and 
chickens scratched the sand on the edge of the 
family circle. As the sun rose higher the fire sank 
lower, and the circle was finally broken by a picka- 
ninny who crept away to follow an adventurous 
chicken up the palace steps. The door stood open 
so temptingly that the chicken stepped gingerly over 
the threshold, but flew back in the pickaninny’s very 
face when an old shoo was hurled at it by some one 
within the palace. The lord of the manor was out 


4 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


of bed. He could be heard talking to his hench- 
man, and presently he appeared in the door- way, 
dressed in what had once been an English shooting 
suit. As he looked abroad, he absently brushed his 
thin gray hair from a part that trickled along the 
middle of his head and meandered down to the nape 
of his neck. He was tall and gaunt. Over his breast 
floated a fine, luxuriant beard of various gray and 
faded yellow shades, and up about his red nose curled 
a straw-colored mustache. That nose had a right 
royal arch, but the little negro on the palace steps 
grinned as he gazed in King’s kindly, watery eyes, 
and when King threw down the brush, the little fel- 
low tried to smooth his own woolly hair, and he was 
laughed at, not rebuked, by his majesty. 

“Where is it?” said King, half to himself, as he 
searched for something or other, and — “ Under the 
table,” answered his henchman, who seemed to know 
instinctively what that something was. It was a 
demijohn, and King was pouring the contents into 
a dirty tumbler when the henchman came out of the 
inner room, fastening the strap that held up a pair of 
weather-beaten trousers. 

“Now go slow, King,” he said, persuasively. 
“ There ain’t much left.” 

Over the top of the dirty tumbler King looked re- 
proachfully at his henchman. 

“Was I ever a hog, Johnnie ?” he asked. 

Johnnie shook the demijohn, and the anxious 
frown on his face was replaced by a smile. It was 
a handsome face, burned by the rays of the sun, but 
not dyed by draughts from the demijohn as his 
majesty’s was. A short, curling beard covered chin 


PAM. 


5 


and jaws; a mustache, a trifle lighter in hue, shaded 
the upper lip; hair lighter yet, almost a golden brown, 
grew thick on the well-shaped head ; and from under 
a broad brow laughed eyes as blue as the Florida 
sky. 

King and henchman ate the breakfast set before 
them by Mammy Sue, and meanwhile gave sundry 
orders to the "black boy Sam, chaffed Lena, the slim 
yellow girl, cuffed the dogs and pickaninnies when 
they pressed too near, and then they lit their pipes 
and sauntered towards the village, Johnnie swinging 
the empty demijohn. A store, a blacksmith shop, 
a gin-mill, a score of unpainted pine shanties, and 
that was Lime Landing, the one place for twenty 
miles around where flour and whiskey and calico 
could be bought. In the straggling, sandy street 
long-nosed hogs disputed the right of way with idle 
n egroes v and^shif tless “ crackers.” These hogs, to- 
gether with some pinched, stunted Florida cattle 
made up the wealth of the community. Oranges 
were raised, too, but not many, and the palace grove 
was the only one successful enough to bear a mort- 
gage. It got its name from its owner’s drunken 
boasts, for after King had celebrated a cock-fight in 
due form, he was sure to talk about his fine home in 
England, about his days at Oxford, and about his sis- 
ter who had married Lord Somebody or other. And 
his henchman, too, perhaps told the truth when he 
was in liquor ; but he was rarely so drunk as to talk 
much of his past career, yet he had sworn that he 
was the son of a parson in Kew England, and had 
spent four merry years at Harvard. The keeper of 
the tavern, the keeper of the store, the keeper of the 


6 


CABIN AND GONDOLA, 


gin-mill and faro -bank, all the Florida crackers, all 
the negroes seemed to recognize in King and John- 
nie men of superior rank; but this profound respect 
was not accompanied by a feeling of perfect confi- 
dence when it came to a matter of money. The few 
northern sportsmen who visited Lime Landing in the 
winter for the sake of quail or snipe shooting were 
inclined to treat King and Johnnie fraternally until 
they had accepted an invitation to a palace cock- 
fight, and after that they were apt to button up their 
pockets and shake their heads when the home of 
royalty was mentioned. And these sportsmen did 
not often come twice or stay long, for the food and 
beds at Lime Landing bore a not altogether good 
reputation in Florida. The tavern, a long, low, di- 
lapidated pine structure, stood at the head of a rotten 
pier where four tinfes each week a little stern-wheel 
steamer halted. The Seminola was due at daybreak, 
but she was so rarely on time that her coming was 
generally awaited by the late risers of Lime Landing 
as well as by those who, having gone to bed at dusk, 
had arisen with the sun. They were all there when 
King and Johnnie and the demijohn appeared, and 
black and white and yellow exchanged greetings 
'while waiting for the tardy boat from Enterprise. 

The Seminola at last glided'around a bend in the 
river, and bumped up against the rotten pier, filling 
the air with the nameless smell that exhales from 
stale food, bilge -water, and rum -soaked animals. 
Johnnie made sundry humorous remarks upon the 
odor, and King bluntly gave his opinions concern- 
ing it, all in a good-natured way ; but the captain 
of the vessel was not in a frame of mind to appre- 


PAM. 


1 


date either their wit or their frankness. He was a 
young man with fiery face and sodden eyes, and he 
turned on them with oaths as foul as his boat. “ Who 
are you, givin’ yerselves sieh airs,” he asked. “You, 
Tom King, and you, Johnnie Gordon? There ain’t 
a man in Floridy ’d trust you with a two-dollar bill. 
Ef you don’t like things here, why don’t you go 
where you like ’em better, eh ?” 

He paused for a reply, but King simply took his 
pipe from his mouth, while Johnnie shut his left eye 
and scratched the tip of his right ear. 

“ I’ll tell yer,” shouted the captain. “ ’Cause if 
yer went where you belong, you’d be jailed up, and 
’cause yer like niggers better than — ” He did not 
finish his sentence, for King stretched out his long 
arm, took the man by the collar, and dropped him 
into the brown water of the St. John. There was a 
roar of laughter among the idlers on the pier as the 
captain, dripping and swearing, climbed back into 
his boat. 

“Takes the King,” said a tallow-faced cracker. 
“An honor’ble gen’leman won’t stand no sich talk 
as that.” 

The honorable gentleman went towards the tavern 
with his henchman, pausing to speak to two Kew 
York sportsmen whose clean shooting clothes did 
not hint at tremendous slaughter of birds. 

“Why ain’t you after quail to-day, doctor ?” King 
asked one of them. 

“ Out of cartridges,” the doctor answered. “ And, 
any way, we are going to leave to-morrow. I can’t 
stand the hotel. It is the vilest rookery I ever came 
across.” 


8 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


“ The Seminola is worse,” said his companion. 

“ ‘ And in the lowest deep, a lower deep, 

Still threatening to devour me, opens wide, 

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven, 1 ” 

quoted Johnnie. 

The man who thought the Seminola worse than 
the tavern stared in surprise, for he recognized the 
hackneyed lines, and he had not been prepared for 
a quotation from Milton. 

“Who are they?” lie asked, after King and John- 
nie had gone into the tavern. 

“ Vagabonds,” his friend answered. “King is an 
Englishman ; Johnnie is a Yankee who lives on 
King, and both stay hero for reasons of their own. 
I suspect tliat the reasons are good; I have heard 
that Johnnie wrote a name once or twice that wasn’t 
his own.” 

“They are men of education, I take it,” said the 
other. 

“ Oh yes ; and men of good family, if their own 
stories can be believed. They are such liars, though! 
Whj T , the tavern - keeper won’t fill that demijohn 
until he sees his money.”*' 

The tavern - keeper saw his money evidently, for 
when King and Johnnie sauntered homeward they 
were both in the condition of the demijohn which 
King carried carefully. At the post-oftiee he received 
a letter, and he slipped it into his pocket, saying, 

“ It’s from my sister.” 

“ From yonr sister her Grace, or your sister her 
Ladyship?” asked Johnnie, his eyes twinkling. 

“From my sister Pam — Pamela, you know. But 
one of my sisters did marry an earl, whether you be- 


PAM. 


9 


lieve it or not. Pam ain’t more’n two-and-twenty ; she’s 
the youngest. Lemme see. First there was Alec, and 
then Bob, and then me, and then Edith, and — ” 

“Oh, skip ’em,” cried Johnnie, “and tell me what 
Pam is writing to yon about now. Why, you got a 
letter from her only a while ago. Lord, what a time 
we did have answering it ! and what a nice fancy 
sketch of life in Florida we did give her, you and 
I. You couldn’t have written such a letter alone 
to save your soul.” 

“ I know it,” said King. “ Yon can lie better than 
me, and I dare say Pam thinks we have a deuced 
neat shooting-box. And your description of your- 
self, my swell young bachelor friend ! Lord, John- 
nie, that letter was a masterpiece.” 

“ Now we’ll send her a better one,” cried John- 
nie. “ Go ahead : let’s hear what she’s got to say 
this time. It’s just like a woman to take an interest 
in the black sheep of the family.” 

“She was eating bread and jam in the nursery 
when I cleared out,” King began, pensively. “ She 
was a sweet little thing then, and old Aunt Pam 
was always giving her mugs and spoons. Aunt 
Pam left her everything — close onto a hundred 
thousand pounds, I fancy.” 

Johnnie whistled. “A hundred thousand pounds !” 
he repeated, and he relapsed into a reverie which 
lasted while King read the letter. It was not a long 
letter, but the contents had a strange effect upon 
him. He turned white to the lips, he looked at the 
stamp on the envelope blankly, and at last he said, 
in a trembling voice, 

“ It’s all the fault of that lying letter you wrote 


10 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


for me. She is coming here to visit me. She is in 
Jacksonville with Mrs. Debenham — she was Kate 
Mowbray, and she rode to hounds better than any 
gal in the county. Yes, Pam is in Jacksonville, 
and she’ll be up here in no time, she and her maid. 
She thought at first she would surprise us, but then 
she decided to send this letter. She takes the steam- 
er that leaves Jacksonville Wednesday noon, and 
here it is Monday. A letter wouldn’t reach her in 
time, there ain’t a telegraph, and we can’t stop her. 
Johnnie.” 

He stood still, and looked at his henchman in de- 
spair. They were close to the palace now’, so close 
that they saw the negroes and dogs sitting on the 
palace steps, and heard Mammy Sue and Lena laugh- 
ing together. A waggish sportsman had given the 
place its name, and the name had been taken up by 
all Lime Landing, until, if any one asked Mammy 
Sue’s tw T o - year - old where he lived, he answered, 
gravely, “ Over to the palace.” 

It was an unpainted one-story pine shanty, divided 
into two rooms, and standing a few feet from the 
ground, giving a space beneath for hogs and dogs, 
and tin cans, broken bottles, old boots, and rusty ket- 
tles. In a lean-to the Sue family had slept until it 
grew too large and overflowed into the sitting-room 
of the palace, and there the little negroes in cold 
weather lay about the floor near the open fireplace. 
The farther room contained rough beds for the 
King and his henchman, and their scanty w T ardrobe 
hung on pegs driven into the wood. 

The palace without w T as fairer than it w T as within, 
for sweet yellow jasmine climbed up to the very 


PAM. 


11 


roof, and then reached out to fall over the chicken- 
pens and the horse’s shanty. The cleared space 
about the close-clustering buildings was hemmed in 
on all sides by orange-trees laden with fruit, and to 
the east the river gleamed in the sunlight. Some- 
times from the river came the hoarse, bellowing 
cries of alligators, and if a foolish young dog strayed 
down to the bank, he was not likely to ever stray 
back home again. 

King viewed his domain sadly. 

“Johnnie,” he said, “what are we going to do?” 

Johnnie laughed. “It is a mess, and no mistake. 
A dainty young Englishwoman, with a maid, a bath- 
tub, six boxes, curling tongs, little high-heeled slip- 
pers, lace handkerchiefs — she at the palace ! Mam- 
my Sue and Lena and the mokes have got to clear 
out, that’s certain.” 

“ Mammy Sue and Lena and the mokes,” King 
repeated, blankly. “ I tell you, Johnnie, she sha’n’t 
come,” he shouted, in sudden wrath and shame, 
“she sha’n’t see how I’m living — me, Geoffrey King’s 
son ! me in a sty like that, running over with niggers 
and fleas !” 

He strode forward, crying and swearing, and en- 
tered the palace, where he found Mammy Sue and 
Lena mending their clothes. He drove them forth 
fiercely, he kicked at the dogs, he discovered a little 
negro curled up in a ball on the bed, and he would 
have tossed the creature through the window if 
Johnnie had not interfered. 

“Lemme alone,” cried King. “It’s my house, not 
yours, and 1 1 am tired of having niggers under my 
feet all the time.” 


12 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


“Where is that portrait of Pam?” asked Johnnie, 
irrelevantly ; but his question diverted King, who set 
about searching for the portrait at once. 

It was not easy to find anything so small as a pho- 
tograph in the palace. The sitting-room had not 
been put in ouder for years, and this morning it 
seemed in greater confusion than ever before. On 
the table were the unwashed dishes from breakfast, 
licked clean, however, by the pickaninnies and the 
pups. Under the table were dirty socks, an old 
portfolio crammed full of letters, a few over -ripe 
oranges, a can of powder, and two or three broken 
pipes. It was too warm a day for a fire, but the 
half-burned logs from the last fire lay on the hearth. 
The high mantel -shelf held tobacco pouches, old 
newspapers, a book or two, more unwashed dishes, 
and a pile of neat little volumes wherein were re- 
corded in ink now faded the sums that King had 
once won or lost, and generally lost, on English race 
grounds. Over the mantel was tacked a sketch of 
his old home, a fine country-house, and a portrait of 
his old father, a high-nosed gentleman. Johnnie had 
no such souvenirs. He had once said frankly that he 
bad started on his travels in such haste that he had ( 
not had time to slip the family portraits into his pock- 
et, and King’s grim response was that it was because 
the aforesaid pockets were full of the family spoons. 

The photograph of Pam was finally found in a 
broken pitcher, and both men looked earnestly at 
the fresh, sw T eet young face. 

“She might help you out of the bog,” said John- 
nie. “ She seems to have taken a fancy to you.” 

“ My debts have been paid three times, and I 


won’t ask to have ’em paid again,” King returned. 
“ And besides, what if they were paid ?” 

“You could go back to England,” Johnnie an- 
swered. “Then if there happened to be an allow- 
ance from that big brother — ” He broke off, and 
eyed King shrewdly. “Was it only debt that drove 
you over here,” he added, “ or was it—” 

“Some such scrape as yours?” cried King, fierce- 
ly. “ Ho. Do you think all the poor devils in Flori- 
da are of your stamp ? I know enough about you, 
Johnnie, and I know that if you were where you 
belong, you would be in — well, not in the palace.” 

Johnnie only laughed. “All right, old man, 
blaze away ; but if you go back to England, I wish 
you would leave my measure with a good tailor in 
London.” 

The idea of going back to his own country was so 
sweet to King that he sat down with Pam’s portrait 
in his hand to think the alluring prospect over. 

“ Maybe.” he muttered. “ She’s got such a lot that 
she’d hardly feel it. And what does a woman want 
o’ so much money ?” 

Johnnie eyed him again. “Old man,” he said, 
“if you expect your sister to help you, she must nev- 
er see the palace. A sight of the house you have 
lived in for ten years would not prejudice her in 
your favor, especially when she compared it with 
the description you wrote.” King looked puzzled, 
and waited for wdiat was to follow. “ Suppose,” said 
Johnnie, “ I fide down to Enterprise to-day — it’s only 
thirty miles by the short-cut, and the mare’s fresh — 
and catch to-morrow’s steamer, and then I am in 
Jacksonville Wednesday morning, just in time to pre- 


14 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


vent Pam from coming up liere. I can introduce 
myself, and as she had such a favorable account of 
me in your letter, she will receive me civilly, I hope. 
And I’ll say you had to go to the coast on business, 
and then I’ll tell her we’re re-papering the palace, or 
that the carpenters are tearing down one side to add 
a billiard-room — see? and so you can’t receive her, 
but you’ll pay her a visit in Jacksonville soon.” 

“That is very neat,” said King, “but I guess I’ll 
go and do all that lying myself. Yes, I’ll go to-day.” 

Johnnie’s face darkened, but he shrugged his shoul- 
ders. “ All right, ”’he said ; “ but you want to start 
pretty soon. It ain’t a pleasant road after dark.” 

King was so elated with Johnnie’s clever scheme 
that he drank a pint or so of whiskey, and then 
strolled over to the tavern to acquaint his friends 
with the news of his proposed journey to Jacksonville. 
On the threshold of the tavern he met the captain of 
the Seminola. Both men tried to enter, there was an 
oath, a push, and then the captain dealt King a blow 
on the face, whereupon King threw the captain down 
the short flight of steps. After that he treated every- 
body, for he had a pocketful of money, and when at 
dusk he reeled back to the palace, he was very drunk, 
and the blow the captain had given him was slowly 
shutting one eye. He flung himself on his bed. 

“Johnnie,” he said, “you go see Pam.. She’s at 
the Saint James. Tell her we’ve got the small-pox; 
tell her the palace is burned down — tell her anything, 
but keep her away from here. Got any money ?” 

“Ho,” Johnnie answered, and King gave him a 
little roll of bills. 

“ You’ll want to smarten up a bit,” he said ; “ and 


PAM. 


15 


don’t you disgrace me. Yon see there ain’t a house 
in England where I ain’t welcome ; but you tell her 
that I’ll be in Jacksonville soon as my dam eyes 
looks tit. You needn’t stay long.” 

“That depends,” said Johnnie, under his breath. 
He put King to bed, covered him with dirty quilts, 
old clothes, and Mammy Sue’s discarded petticoats ; 
then he went forth to saddle the mare for the thirty- 
mile ride; and just as the moon rose up above the 
sad, moss- hung oaks, he galloped gayly northward, 
singing in his mellow voice, 

“ * Fi des coquettes manierees ! 

Fi des begueules du grand ton ! 

Je pref&re & ces mijaurees 
Ma Jeannette, ma Jeanneton !’ ” 


PART II. 

The King did not go to Jacksonville so soon as he 
had proposed, for the simple reason that he had no 
money, having given his last dollar to Johnnie; and 
Johnnie, instead of returning, sent a letter. The 
henchman had done his work well. 

“ I have made it all right, you see,” he wrote ; “ Pam 
thinks the palace is burned down, and that you have 
gone to the coast on important business. As she and 
her duenna are much too proud to speak to any one in 
the hotel, they won’t learn anything that they had as 
well not know. Only you keep away and don’t write, 
for the postmark would give me the lie. I was 
lucky enough to win a little something at cards the 
other night, so I can stay another week or two as 
well as not.” 

“I’d like to know why I’ve got to keep away,” said 


16 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


King to himself as lie put Johnnie’s letter into his 
pocket, “ and I’d like to know why he is going to stay 
another week. What is Johnnie up to, 1 wonder V 9 

The next time the Seminola came to Lime Land- 
ing she brought a letter from Pam, who, after con- 
doling with her brother on the destruction of his 
house, wrote as follows : 

“ I don’t suppose this letter will reach you until 
you return from the coast; but I do hope you will 
come to Jacksonville soon, although Mr. Gordon says 
that he does not see how you can get away until the 
orange crop is packed. He has told me all about 
your lovely grove, and while he tries to make light 
of your recent misfortune, I can see that he feels as 
though it were his own home that had been burned. 
I make him describe the house again and again ; and 
now I can almost see you and him sitting in that 
little bachelor den, smoking your cigars and talking- 
over the day’s shooting. We like him so much, Mrs. 
Debenham and I, and Hugh Debenham thinks he is 
a wonderful fellow — a boy’s admiration for a Clevel- 
and accomplished man. How fortunate you are to 
have such a friend to spend the winters with you 
there in that lonely place, although he declares that 
he enjoys the solitude of Florida more than the gay- 
ety of Newport. You and he are quite like Damon 
and Pythias. Everything lie tells me about you 
strengthens my desire to see you. I remember you 
very well, child though I was when you went away, 
and I am determined to carry you back to England 
with me. Alec and I could easily manage the debts. 
Mr. Gordon says that you would not live anywhere 
except in Florida; but you could visit your orange- 


! 


PAM. 17 

grove every winter, even if you made England your 
home,- and I could come with you and keep your 
house — your new house, I mean. We must plan that 
| together. Mr. Gordon — 55 

Here King put the letter down with a droll smile; 

| then he counted the number of times Johnnie was 
i mentioned in the four pages, and the result made 
him scowl. 

“He’s a dam scoundrel,” he cried. “And how T 
he can lie !” 

“ Who r $” asked Lena, looking up from the palmetto 
hat she was making. 

“Well, no matter who ; but I’ll stop his little game, 
yes, I will, though I may burn my own fingers. My 
sister — my sister! Why, he ain’t fit to clean my 
shoes, let alone hers. Lena, you look over my clothes 
and mend the best of ’em, and see if you can’t find 
me a decent shirt. I’m going to Jacksonville.” 

It cost him a great pang to part with his game- 
cocks; but sold they were that very afternoon, and so 
was the ungathered crop of oranges, all bought by 
the Jew who held the mortgage on the palace grove. 
The Jew chuckled a little, but King felt like a rich 
man with that roll of greasy bills in his pocket. The 
next day the Seminola bore him away down the riv- 
er. He drank almost nothing ; he held himself aloof 
from every one, and the crew of the stern -wheel 
steamer reckoned that the King was up to something 
or other. When he reached Jacksonville, he bought 
a collar, a cravat, a hat, and a pair of shoes, which he 
donned at once ; so that, as he sauntered out of the 
shop with a smart top -coat over his arm, he looked 
like a gentleman who wore shabby clothes because 
2 


18 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


lie liked them better than new. Still, he hesitated 
about entering the hotel where his sister was staying, 
and idled near the door-way until he saw Johnnie 
coming down the steps. Was it Johnnie — Johnnie 
shaved clean, save for that light mustache — Johnnie 
in that dapper morning costume — Johnnie drawing 
on those irreproachable dog-skin gloves? It was the 
henchman indeed, and it was for him that two horses, 
saddled and bridled, were waiting. He did not see 
King, he was too busy with the straps of the side- 
saddle ; and when the straps' were properly adjusted, 
he had eyes only for the sweet-faced woman who ran 
down the steps lightly, holding up the scant skirt of 
her habit. 

“Pam,” whispered King. Pam did not so much 
as glance towards the tall, lean, gray-bearded man, 
who started forward only to shrink back again in 
the little crowd of idlers, but she smiled on Johnnie, 
and the smile made her brother catch his breath. 
He watched the pair ride away ; he heard the idlers 
say it was a handsome couple; he saw significant 
looks exchanged, and then, with his head held very 
high, he mounted the hotel steps. lie had not sat 
long on the piazza when a buxom woman in widow’s 
dress took a chair near him. He stared at her ; he 
did not recognize her; rather he divined who she 
was, and he presented himself to her shyly ; but she 
received him graciously enough, although she had 
heard many sad stories about him in days gone by. 
It was Mrs. Debenham, Pam’s duenna, and King 
had known her when she was a girl, he a gay, light- 
hearted young man. She told him about people he 
knew; whom this one had married, how that one had 


PAM. 


19 


been killed by the Zulus, and how another was rais- 
ing cattle in Colorado. Presently she introduced to 
him her son Hugh, a tall, bright -eyed youth, fresh 
from Eton. 

“Pam ain’t back yet,” said Hugh, with a knowing 
smile. 

“Hot yet,” his mother echoed; then, turning to 
King — “We like your friend very much, and Pam 
rides with him nearly every day. When one is in 
Rome, you know—” 

“ Oh yes, yes,” said King, hastily, his anxious glance 
straying towards the street. 

It seemed a long time before they came back, Pam 
and Johnnie, and they ran up the steps gayly, their 
faces flushed, their eyes shining, but they stopped 
short at the sight of King. He rose, looking at his 
sister. 

“ Well, Pam,” he said, with a tremulous smile, “ it’s 
me.” 

“ Tom !” she cried ; and then, forgetting the star- 
ing people, she kissed the black sheep of the family. 
“ Dear old boy,” she whispered, “ I am so sorry.” 

“ Sorry, Pam ? sorry that I came ?” 

“ Ho, no, but sorry for your new trouble. As if 
you had not had quite enough.” 

Johnnie broke in at this juncture. “The fire, 
man,” he said. “ Don’t look so dazed. Have you for- 
gotten that the palace burned down a fortnight ago ?” 

King’s face cleared. “ To be sure. I swear I had 
forgotten it. I am so glad to see yon, Pam. You look 
a little as Edith used to; but you’re taller, ain’t you?” 

“ Two inches taller. But tell me : have you come 
down to stay, or must you go back again ?” 


20 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


“I must go back, and, Pam, Pll take you along. 
There’s a tavern at Lime Landing, where you can stop 
a day or two — just long enough to see all that’s left 
of my palace. You know they used to call it a pal- 
ace up there. Come, we’ll start to-morrow morning. 
What do you say ?” 

“ Say ?” she repeated, “ why, I say go. And you ?” 
she turned to Johnnie, who stood by, twirling his hat. 

“ Oh, I must stay here,” he said. “ I have an en- 
gagement ; but when you come back — ” 

Pam colored. 

“ When we come back,” she echoed ; then she went 
off to change her dress, and Johnnie took King up 
three flights of stairs to a clean little bedroom. 

“King,” he said, “you are as drunk as a lord. 
Why did you ask Pam to go up the river?” 

“The idea just popped into my head,” King an- 
swered, with a queer smile, “ and, on my soul, I think 
it an uncommonly good idea.” 

“ She will find out that we are a pair of liars,” 
said Johnnie. 

King nodded, “ That’s so.” 

Something in his manner struck Johnnie as very 
extraordinary. “Why, see here,” he said, “if you 
keep your head, and let things go on for another 
week, it will be the best thing you ever did for your- 
self. Pam will get the family to pay your debts, 
and you can go to England.” 

“And you’d go along?” said King, in a tone that 
made Johnnie glance at him keenly. 

“ Certainly not, if you objected,” he returned. “ In- 
deed I couldn’t get money enough to pay my passage.” 

King smiled. “You’re pretty cunning, Johnnie; 


PAM. 


21 


but the fact is, I am ashamed of myself. I am 
going to take Pam up the river, show her the shanty, 
and just let her see for herself. Seeing is believ- 
ing, and a woman will trust to her eyes when she 
wouldn’t to her ears. “I am sorry to have her think 
ill of us, but we’ll be in the same boat.” 

Johnnie did not look as though he found that con- 
soling. “Well,” he said, “do as you please. Only 
don’t expect me to be near when you give your sister 
the shock. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, 
and she’ll think I have gulled her shamefully, And 
I did it for you, Tom ; I lied for you.” 

“ It was very good of you,” said King, “ and I 
thank you for the service.” He rose as he spoke 
and moved towards the door. With his hand on the 
knob, he added, in his usual tone, and dropping his 
ironical dignity, “ By - the - way, Johnnie, where did 
you leave the mare ?” 

“Oh, she’s at the stable in Enterprise,” Johnnie 
answered. “ You can send Sam down for her, or I’ll 
ride her back myself after your sister has made her 
visit. There isn’t much room at the palace, so I’ll 
stay away while Miss King and her maid are there. 
You can put the maid in the little room over the 
library, and you needn’t mind about disturbing any 
traps that I piled up in there.” 

Johnnie laughed, and King looked at him in ad- 
miration. “ You lie so well that I almost believe 
there is a library there,” he said. “ My tongue is no 
match for yours ; but seeing is believing.” 

“Yes,” said Johnnie, after King had gone and the 
door was shut — “yes, seeing is believing, you blun- 
dering old fool.” 


22 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


They all met in the dining-room presently, and the 
talk at table ran on smoothly, Johnnie, however, com- 
plaining a little because he was obliged to eat his 
dinner in the middle of the day, and Pam consoling 
him, saying that he surely could endure it for a 
while. 

“I am not used to it,” he returned. “King and I 
don’t care much for breakfast and luncheon, but when 
seven o’clock comes we want our dinner. The din- 
ing-room at the palace was uncommonly pretty, to my 
thinking. We had a lot of antlers hanging around, 
and then there were sketches — ” 

“Fancy sketches,” put in King. 

“Do you draw and paint?” asked Pam, turning to 
Johnnie, who shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Oh, I used to,” he answered. 

Hugh Debenham heaved a great sigh. 

“ I wish the house had not been burned,” he said. 
“ I should have liked awfully well to have stopped 
there and got a little shooting — that is, if you could 
have stowed me away somehere.” 

“We could have stowed you away,” said King. 

Mrs. Debenham looked at him with a deprecating 
smile. “ Poor Hugh,” she said. “ He has wanted 
to see the palace ever since Mr. Gordon told him 
about it. I confess that I, too, should have trespassed 
upon your hospitality, for I have always had a great 
desire to visit one of the plantations in the South.” 

“ There is nothing there now but the orange-grove,” 
said Johnnie, “ and the village tavern is no place for 
ladies. Otherwise, I would suggest that we all go to 
Lime Landing for a week or ten days.” 

“I am going,” said Pam. 


PAM. 


23 


Leave your maid here,” said her brother. “ You 
can do your own hair, can’t you ?” 

“ Oil yes ; but, poor thing, she will be disappointed; 
she always likes to go everywhere. She is Bates’s 
daughter. You remember Bates, the old gardener?” 

King nodded. Dinner was over, and he w r ent off, 
with a cigar, to a corner of the piazza. Kemember 
old Bates ? Indeed he did ; and as he sat alone 
smoking, for a sweet half-hour he was lost in memo- 
ries that blotted out the present. 

At noon the next day he and Pam started for 
Lime Landing, and Johnnie, who had freed himself 
from his engagement, accompanied them. It w-as 
Johnnie who sat with Pam on the deck all the after- 
noon and evening; it was Johnnie who the next 
morning showed her where the river began to widen 
into Lake Monroe. 

“And yonder is Enterprise,” he said. “We spend 
the day there, and this evening we shall take the 
steamer that goes farther up the river. This boat is 
too big to get near Lime Landing.” 

“ What odd names the places have,” she said. 

“You won’t forget them when you are back in 
England ?” 

“ Oh no ; I shall never forget them. And then you 
and my brother will be at my elbow to remind me.” 

“ Shall we ? I hope so, but your brother does not 
seem overjoyed to think that I am going to England, 
and so perhaps I had better stay here.” 

She shot a reproachful glance at him. “ And does 
your going or staying depend on him ?” she asked. 

“No,” he answered, softly ; and for a minute his 
hand rested on hers. 


24 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


Bat soon after their arrival at Enterprise, where 
the hotel was overflowing with Northern people — in- 
valids, fashionable folks, sportsmen — Johnnie disap- 
peared. King wondered vaguely where he had gone, 
but his suspicions were not roused until he went to 
the livery-stable and found that Johnnie had ridden 
away hours ago on the mare. 

“ Mr. Gordon left this note for you,” the clerk said, 
when he returned to the hotel. The note ran as fol- 
lows : 

“Dear King, — I think it best to go to the coast 
for a fortnight. There won’t be room for us all at 
the palace. Say au revoir to your sister for me, and 
tell her that if I cannot show her the beauties of 
Lime Landing, I hope that she will some day be 
gracious enough to show me the beauties of her 
home in England. J. G.” 

“ Oh, the liar,” said King, gently, as he tore up the 
missive. He could almost see Johnnie’s mocking 
smile, and hear his sneering voice. 

At the supper-table he gave his sister the message 
gravely. “ You were asleep in your room,” he added, 
“and so Johnnie could not bid you good-bye.” 

“Not good-bye — only au revoir ; he will proba- 
bly join us at Lime Landing,” said Pam, with a con- 
fident smile. 

“Well, I don’t know,” King said, dubiously. 
“Johnnie is a bit erratic; I shouldn’t be surprised if 
we didn’t lay eyes on him again for years. It would 
be just like him to go off in this fashion, and turn 
up — ” 

“ In England,” said Pam. 


PAM. 


25 


At dusk that evening they went aboard the dirty 
stern-wheel steamer. They were the only passengers, 
and they sat on deck late into the night, talking to- 
gether earnestly, Pam trying to persuade her brother 
to return home with her the next Ma} r . She de- 
clared that the eldest brother would help him; she 
herself would help him, and he might get on his feet 
again if he would only not gamble. But King did 
not respond readily ; he had lived so long in Florida 
that he thought he had better pass the rest of his 
days there. 

“Think of the dreariness of it!” cried Pam. 
“Surely you don’t suppose Mr. Gordon will spend 
all the winters with you? And what would you do 
alone ?” 

“I might manage it,” he answered. “Time you 
turned in, Pam, and got a little sleep. It is pretty 
late.” 

It was late, but Pam could not stay in that un- 
speakable little cubby -hole where her brother put 
her any longer than she must, and at daybreak she 
was out on the deck again. She found King there. 
He had not tried to sleep ; he had not even taken off 
his clothes. He was shaky and nervous, not so much 
from lack of sleep, as from lack of drink, for his un- 
accustomed abstinence told on him greatly. 

The Seminola was on time that morning, and con- 
sequently the population of Lime Landing was not 
at the pier to receive her. It was so early that no 
one was stirring; the place seemed deserted; the 
tavern-keeper alone was abroad, and he stared at 
King and at King’s companion in speechless amaze- 
ment. 


26 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


“ Let us go and see your grove,” said Pam. “ It 
is near, isn’t it?” 

“ Yes, it is only a few minutes’ walk,” he answered, 
and as lie spoke lie passed liis trembling hand over 
his beard. “ They must have had a hard rain here 
last night,” he added, mechanically. “ I don’t know 
when I have seen things look so drenched.” 

“ Oh, there is a mocking-bird,” cried Pam; and 
for a minute they paused to listen to the joyous song 
he poured forth on the silent air. 

“ Come,” said King, curtly, almost roughly, and he 
strode ahead of his sister; but at the palace gate he 
stopped, and peered through the orange-trees. 

“Wait, Tom,” said Pam, hastening after him. As 
though lie had not heard her, he walked on swiftly 
and then stopped again. What he saw was this: a 
mass of burned wood lying black and sodden on the 
ground, the charred timbers glistening with rain- 
drops. There was nothing left of the palace. It 
was destroyed indeed. The dogs and hogs came to- 
wards him, a flock of pigeons wheeled near; and 
then he felt a soft hand slipped through his arm, and 
heard a soft voice say, tenderly, 

“ It was your home, and you loved it, Tom.” 

“All I had,” he said. “Now — ” He stared 
blankly at the scene of desolation. “ Pam,” he cried, 
“it is hard. I can’t look at it; I can’t stay here. 
To think it is gone ! Or am I dreaming, Pam ?” 

“ My poor brother,” she murmured. 

He led her back to the tavern, and saw her safe in 
the best chamber the house afforded ; then he went 
into the bar-room. 

“ I’m re’lly sorry,” said the landlord. “ I’m re’lly 


PAM. 


27 


sorry, ole man. It burned like a piece of tinder, 
early last evening, just before the rain come. Mam- 
my Sue and the rest of ’em had gone over to Gallup’s 
for a dance. They’ll feel pretty bad when they 
come back, and find out what’s happened.” 

King took a big drink of whiskey. “ I’d like to 
know how it caught fire,” he said. 

“ Oh, Sue must ha’ left a fire in the yard, and 
when the wind blew up, why, a spark was enough if 
it landed just right.” 

“ Yes, that’s so,” said King. He went back to the 
ruins; he scrutinized the ground with a sharp eye, 
and a few rods north of where the palace had stood 
he found a dog-skin glove. He kicked it aside and 
went on in the same direction until he reached a 
dense clump of palmettos, and there stood his own 
mare tethered to a tree. She was saddled and bri- 
dled, and she greeted her master with an eager, 
hungry neigh. 

“Come from Enterprise last night?” King said, 
and she rubbed her nose against his sleeve for an- 
swer. He opened the saddle-bags ; they contained a 
few articles of clothing belonging to Johnnie, all 
soaked by the heavy rain of the night before. King 
stood for a few minutes, gnawing his mustache. 

“'Where is he?” he muttered. “He meant to 
ride off and keep out o’ my way. What happened 
to hinder ?” 

Swearing and talking incoherently to himself, he 
went back to the pile of ashes ; a faint, sickly odor 
rose in the air, mingled with the smell of burned 
wood, and overhead wheeled a great, loathsome bird, 
the scout of a scavenger crew. As though the bird 


28 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


had told him what to do, King cut a limb from an 
orange-tree, and thrust it among the charred timbers ; 
but when he pushed back the broken bricks of the j 
chimney, a sight met his eyes that made him stop 
in his work for an instant; then he smiled, and drew \ 
out of the ashes a boot-heel with the spur attached. 

“ Caught in his own trap!” he cried aloud. 
“Drunk, likely — stumbled, fell ! That’s why he j 
didn’t steal my horse as well as burn my house.” 

The carrion crow circled nearer and nearer, sweep- 
ing down over the ruins, and he beckoned to it. 

“ Come ; you can have all that’s left of him. lie 
lived off me — now you feast off his carcass.” 

Laughing, he turned and made his way to the tav- 
ern, but the triumphant look faded from his face 
when he saw his sister — his sister, a gentlewoman 
from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, 
sitting there in that wretched little tavern. 

“ Pam,” he said, “ this is no place for you ; I 
ought not to have brought you. Are you afraid to 
ride down to Enterprise? It’s a bad road, but it’s 
only thirty miles, and you can send your box by the 
boat. I must quit this place ; it suffocates me.” 

She looked at him in bewilderment. “As you 
like,” she said, submissively. “You can leave word 
for Mr. Gordon. I suppose he will be here in a day 
or two.” 

“ If you ever see him again, it will surprise the 
angels in heaven,” he muttered. 

She did not hear all he said. 

“See him again?” she echoed, and as she spoke 
a faint flush stole into her cheeks. “ Indeed I shall 
— at least so I hope.” 


PAM. 


29 


“ Hope ?” her brother echoed, passing his hand over 
his dry lips. “Pain,” he began, and she looked up 
at him with a quick, expectant smile — “Pam, we can 
leave here in an hour.” Then he hesitated. “And 
I swear I can’t come back,” he exclaimed. 

“ Why ?” she asked. 

He would not tell her ; lie never told her. When 
he bade her farewell on the deck of the ocean steam- 
er that was to bear her home to England, he saw 
that she had grown anxious-eyed, and she asked, with 
a little attempt at carelessness, what had become of 
his friend. King sh rugged his shoulders, and said 
grimly that he did not know. 

“I dare say he is in England at this minute,” said 
Pam, and her brother held his peace. 

He meant to write to her that summer; and once 
in Colorado he began a letter, but he tore it up, 
muttering to himself, 

“ She has forgotten him by this time.” 



MRS. BRAYFIELD. 


During my sojourn in Diisseldorf-on-the-Rhine, I 
lived for several months in a German family. Liv- 
ing also in this family were two English ladies, a Mrs. 
Brayfield and her daughter. The mother was a fat, 
large-boned woman, with a russet-red eomplexion and 
very black hair. The daughter was quieter in ap- 
pearance and manner, and although not a clever girl, 
w T as an indefatigable student, and industrious to an 
astonishing degree. She had a German lesson every 
day, and a music lesson twice a week. Therefore, 
when she was not practising scales with patient zeal 
she was bending over grammars and dictionaries, 
struggling with the achs and ichs of the German lan- 
guage. In marked contrast sat the mother near, with 
folded hands, an air of happy idleness about her. 
Distressed at this, our German hausfrau taught Mrs. 
Brayfield to knit. Thereupon the latter began the 
manufacture of a gray woollen stocking. My ac- 
quaintance with Mrs. Brayfield lasted some four or 
five months, and when we parted that stocking was 
not yet heeled. 

“ Really,” she used to exclaim, bursting into my 
room — “really, I never saw such girls as you and my 
daughter. When I was young I did not worry about 
German and Latin and thorough-bass. Even when 
you read English, it is Chaucer or some such old 


MRS. BRAYFIELD. 


31 


thing that one needs a dictionary and a history of 
England to understand. When I was young I used 
to sing and play a little, and I danced, and I was the 
best rider in the county, and I had beaux by the doz- 
en. But nowadays ? — why, a girl must at least paint 
in water-colors !” 

And she gazed at me anxiously through her eye- 
glasses. 

“Yes,” I echoed, “ at least paint in water-colors.” 

“And there’s Fanny,” continued Mrs. Brayfield. 
“Fanny is a good girl; I could not ask a better 
daughter, but I do wish she liked dancing and all 
that. Do you care for dancing, Miss Gray ?” 

“Not at all,” I replied. 

“ Of course not,” said Mrs. Brayfield, an accent 
of irritated desperation diffusing itself through her 
voice. “No; you are intellectual, too. Dear me! 
I w T onder what time it is?” With this she pulled 
out her watch. “ Bast one o’clock, I declare. Din- 
ner is always late here, and such dinners ! Day be- 
fore yesterday, veal ; yesterday, fresh pork ; and to- 
day I am sure it will be sausage. Do you like sau- 
sage, Miss Gray ?” 

“Sometimes,” was my answer, given laconically 
and with a glance towards “Hermann und Dorothea,” 
whose history I was longing to continue. 

“Sausage and veal,” repeated Mrs. Brayfield, in a 
tone of contemplative contempt. “ Now wouldn’t it 
be nice if we could have ribs of beef such as we have 
in England ?” 

It was useless to remind Mrs. Brayfield that I was 
an American ; she invariably disregarded the fact, 
and alluded to England and London as though I had 


32 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


been born under the shadow of Westminster Abbey 
itself. Moreover, slie always stated the prices of 
everything to me in pounds, shillings, and pence, 
which gave me an infinite amount of trouble. Men- 
tal arithmetic was never my forte , and when Mrs. 
Brayfield talked about pounds and shillings, I was 
obliged to go through an elaborate calculation before 
I arrived at a correct idea as to the value of things. 
She never mastered German money, simple as it is. 
When I was beguiled into .going on shopping expe- 
ditions with her, I usually did the talking, as Mrs. 
Brayfield spoke no German ; so, when the shopman 
told me the price of something, and I repeated it to 
Mrs. Brayfield, I was straightway met with, 

“ Forty-seven marks and six pfennige. How many 
pounds is that 

Then I reduced the forty-seven marks and six pfen- 
nige into dollars and cents, multiplied by five, and that 
was as nearly right as I could get the amount. But 
it involved arithmetical intricacies and difficulties 
which can only be appreciated by the unmathemati- 
cal-minded. It may be readily inferred that I was 
very wary about going on shopping expeditions with 
Mrs. Brayfield, although to decline her invitations 
often required considerable diplomacy, for I could 
not be rude and refuse point-blank to accompany 
her. The person who could have treated Mrs. Bray- 
field rudely must have had a heart of stone. Never 
in my life did I see a woman so overflowing with 
good-will towards others. About eleven o’clock in 
the morning her hospitable soul could no longer con- 
tain itself. She would come into my room, and say, 
persuasively, 


MRS. BRAYFIELD. 


83 


“Now, Miss Gray, yon must have a bit of luncheon 
with us. Only a biscuit and a glass of sherry, you 
know. Do come.” 

Often I had to go, literally swept away from my 
studies by the force of Mrs. Bray field’s eloquence, to 
drink sherry that I abhorred, and eat English biscuit 
that I detested. 

Both mother and daughter ate more than any 
women I ever saw. Myself, I am not of the deli- 
cate and ethereal order, but to breakfast off chops 
or kidneys and coffee at eight, lunch on a sandwich 
and a glass of sherry at eleven, dine at one, drink 
coffee at four, and eat a supper of meat and vegeta- 
bles at eight in the evening, is a trifle more than I 
am equal to. 

“ I must eat,” Mrs. Brayfield used to say, with plain- 
tive anxiety. “ I have a large frame to support. 
And Fanny too. The child is weak, and needs good 
meat and wine. How the Germans live on veal and 
sausage is more than I can understand. Do you like 
sausage, Miss Gray ?” 

“Sometimes,” would be my reply. I think she 
asked me if I liked sausage every time that I saw 
her. Why she was so anxious as to the sausage I 
never quite understood. 

There also lived in this family a German artist, a 
bachelor, Herr Yogel by name, who spoke English 
very well. He was a little, elderly man, with sloping 
shoulders, faded blond hair and mustache, and with a 
general air of shabby dejection about him. We saw 
him only at meals, and sometimes for an hour in the 
evening. He seemed to be industrious, and trotted 
off to his studio every morning and painted away at 
3 


34 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


the weakest and most vapid sort of pictures it has 
ever been my misfortune to behold. 

Mrs. Brayfield, for some unaccountable reason, had 
a great desire to visit Yogel’s studio. She teased 
the poor man about it with a beautiful persistenc}\ 
Finally he said one day, in tones of submission that 
were almost pathetic, 

a Yes, yon may come. But there is nothing to 
see — and it is very dirty.” 

But not at all abashed by this uninviting descrip- 
tion, Mrs. Brayfield marched thither that very after- 
noon, taking her daughter and me passively in her 
train. Little Yogel met us at the door with a dep- 
recating smile, and ushered us in. An artist’s stu- 
dio was no novelty to me, but I looked at the sketch- 
es and studies with at least a decent show of interest, 
while Mrs. Brayfield swept about with an uplifted 
glass, and gazed at everything with exclamations of 
delight. When we had taken leave and liad struck 
the sidewalk, she turned to me and said impres- 
sively, 

“Herr Yogel has wonderful talent.” 

“Wonderful!” I echoed. Long experience had 
taught me that it was wise not to enter into the 
realms of criticism with people of Mrs. Brayfield’s 
calibre. 

. “ He must make a good bit of money by his pict- 
ures,” she continued. “And he can surely paint a 
picture a week, and that makes fifty-two in a year — 
ah ! he must make a good bit of money.” 

“ Yes,” I said. 

My part in the conversations that I had with Mrs. 
Brayfield was insignificant, merely a sort of chorus 


MRS. BRAYFIELD. 


35 


to her prolonged solo. It was not surprising to me 
that her daughter had developed into a silent creat- 
ure, absorbed in her German grammar and her mu- 
sic. She played with a simplicity that I liked, and 
often when I was tired, and perhaps a trifle home- 
sick, I would go to Mrs. Brayfleld’s sitting-room and 
ask Fanny to play something for me. On these oc- 
casions the mother would generally sit in a low, deep 
chair by the window, the everlasting woollen stock- 
ing in her hand. 

“You think Fanny has talent, don’t you?” she 
would say. “ When we go back to London I’ll take 
a little house in Kensington, and Fanny shall have 
the best grand -piano I can buy. When my dear 
husband was alive he used to say that Fanny had a 
talent for music, but I never thought it. Still it 
looks so now, doesn’t it ?” 

“ Decidedly so,” I replied. 

“ Every day that I live I see proofs of my dear 
husband’s wisdom,” continued Mrs. Brayfield. “In- 
deed my husband seems to have been almost a 
prophet. He said that our boy Harry would turn 
out good for nothing, and so he has. He said that he 
was sure Fanny would prove clever, quiet though she 
was, and he was right there too. He even told me 
that after he died he w r as sure I would throw away 
my fortune, and so I have.” 

Mrs. Brayfield’s frankness in speaking of herself 
and her own affairs was a source of continual aston- 
ishment to me. I had not known her a week before 
she told me all about the death of her husband and 
the subsequent loss of her fortune. 

“He left me twenty -five thousand pounds, and 


36 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


well invested,” she would say. “ And wliat did I 
do ? Muddle it all away !” This with an expres- 
sive gesture of lier hands. “ Still I have bread-and- 
cheese left, and Fanny will always have enough, so I 
need not worry, need I ?” 

The story of her former wealth was repeated very 
often, and finally became rather a joke in the house- 
hold. Once in the absence of the Brayfields, our 
hausfrau said something laughingly as to their for- 
mer grandeur. Whereupon meek little Yogel spoke 
up with unwonted energy. 

“ I do not know why Mrs. Brayfield should mourn 
so much over her lost fortune, she has more than 
any of us now.” 

Which was probably true. 

As weeks rolled past, I noticed that Mrs. Brayfield 
and Yogel seemed to enjoy each other’s society 
greatly. The little man would sit and listen with 
most flattering attention while she related anecdotes 
of her former splendor. Finally, however, I was 
electrified by the startling announcement that he 
was to paint her portrait. When our hausfrau told 
me, I gasped for breath. 

“ How — how does he paint her ?” I stammered. 

“ Decolietee replied the hausfrau , with a wicked 
twinkle in her eye. 

That very same afternoon Mrs Brayfield bustled 
into my room all excitement. 

“Fancy,” she exclaimed, “ Herr Yogel has asked 
permission to paint my portrait. I am sure it is 
most flattering, but do you think it is quite proper?” 

“Why not?” said I, guardedly. 

“ I am sure I don’t know why not, but still I feel 


MRS. BRAYFIELD. 


37 


a {rifle odd about it. He paints it for himself, you 
know ; I did not order it. I have consented, so it is 
too late to worry, isn’t it ? But at least I shall never 
go alone to his studio. Fanny must always accom- 
pany me. It would not be proper to go alone, 
would it?” 

For a roaming Bohemian like myself to be ap- 
pealed to upon a point of propriety struck me as 
exquisitely funny. I longed for my great friend to 
be present to enjoy the joke. But I maintained my 
gravity, and agreed with Mrs. Brayfield that she 
must be chaperoned by her daughter. A few days 
after I heard that the portrait was in progress, and 
then the subject seemed dropped. 

After this I regarded Mrs. Brayfield and Vogel 
with fresh interest. They looked odd together. 
She was so big and expansive, and he was so small 
and insignificant. He regarded her with evident 
admiration, mingled with a respect that bordered 
upon awe. Her opinion as to him she gave with 
great freedom, 

“ He is a good. soul,” she would say with a benev- 
olent smile, “ and much cleverer than he looks. He 
could not be stupid, and paint such lovely pictures. 
I saw one to-day, a charming little thing. There 
was a woman sitting in a garden— no, not a garden, 
but a conservatory, you know — and a child was run- 
ning away with her ball of cotton — Was it a child, 
Fanny dear, or was it a poodle? — And in the back- 
ground there was a river, or a fountain something. 
Dear me, my memory is growing so bad. The pict- 
ure, though, was lovely. You really ought to see it, 
Miss Gray. He asks ten pounds for it. That is a 


38 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


good bit of money for a little picture, isn’t it? It 
was not bigger than my two hands.” With this she 
put her large, red, and gouty hands together in an 
explanatory way. 

As can be easily imagined, Mrs. Brayfield’s descents 
upon me were rather annoying at times. Rarely had 
I really settled myself to study or write before she 
took possession of my room, my arm-chair, and my- 
self. Delicate little hints were useless, and rude I 
would not be. Fanny, however, rarely disturbed me, 
and therefore I was a trifle surprised when she en- 
tered my room one afternoon just at the hour she 
usually practised her interminable scales. 

“ Don’t let me trouble you,” she said, hastily, with 
a glance at the books and papers on the table before 
me. “ I have only come to ask you to go to the 
Tonhalle Concert this evening.” 

“ Who is going?” said I. 

“Mamma and Ilerr Yogel and I — and you, I 
hope.” 

I hesitated, seeing which Fanny added, persuasive- 
ly, with almost a beseeching accent, “ Please, Miss 
Gray.” 

And Miss Gray yielded, weakly, good - natured 
young woman that she is, and then regretted it all 
the afternoon. 

About half-past six we wended our way towards 
the Tonhalle, Mrs. Brayfield looming up magnificent- 
ly beside little Yogel, while Fanny and I followed 
meekly in their wake. During the summer the 
weekly concerts were given in the Tonhalle garden, 
and when we arrived we found it lit up, and with 
many people already grouped round the little tables 


MRS. BRAYFIELD. 


80 


that; were set out irregularly here and there. We 
took our places at one of these little tables, and or- 
dered a bottle of wine, as the custom is. Straight- 
way Mrs. Brayfield fell to descanting upon the su- 
periority of everything English over everything Ger- 
man. 

“ Fancy, Fanny dear,” she began, turning towards 
her daughter, who was holding the programme of 
the music up to her near-sighted eyes, and reading 
it with much interest, “fancy us coming to such 
a beer-garden to listen to a concert ! We never do 
this in England,” she continued, now turning to Herr 
Yogel. “When I used to go to a concert in Lon- 
don, my carriage came up to the door and took me 
to the hall — not such a place as this, you know, but 
a beautiful building; and, dear me, how the ladies 
did dress ! I used to prefer the Opera myself. You 
really should see an opera in London, Herr Yogel, 
you really should see it.” 

Little Yogel murmured something about hoping 
that he might have that pleasure, and then the mu- 
sic began. 

For a while Mrs. Brayfield was silenced, but four- 
and-twenty fiddlers could not subdue her long, and 
soon she fell to talking again, about London, of 
course, and the Opera there, her ideas floating from 
one topic to another easily and interminably. 

The people who had the misfortune to sit near us 
turned and looked. They might as well have hoped 
to silence Niagara by a stare; Mrs. Brayfield kept 
on in the even tenor of her way. After the first 
piece, the people in our immediate vicinity went 
away; after the second there was a like emigration; 


40 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


and when the fifteen minutes of interlude came we 
sat alone in a desert of empty chairs. 

I wondered whether Miss Brayfield noticed this; 
most assuredly the mother did not, or, at any rate, 
did not understand it, for, with a glance around us, 
she said, 

“What dreadfully thirsty people these Germans 
are ! Why, since the concert began all the people 
who were sitting near us have gone away, to get 
beer, of course. I can’t say I like the beer here. 
I’d rather have a glass of Bass’s ale any day, wouldn’t 
you, Miss Gray ?” 

To which I replied in the affirmative, vaguely 
wondering when she w r ould ask me if I liked sau- 
sage. 

After the interlude the orchestra played a barca- 
role, by Bubinstein, I think, a plaintive little thing, 
not free, indeed, from sentimentality. While the 
violins were drawing out a particularly lackadaisical 
passage, I chanced to glance at Yogel. He was gaz- 
ing at Mrs. Brayfield with meek devotion. The wid- 
ow caught his eye, and gave him a tender look in 
return. A horrible thought crept into my brain. 
Was there an elderly flirtation in progress? This 
idea so disgusted mo that the wine tasted flat and 
the music sounded vulgar. Glad was I when the 
concert was over, the walk home accomplished, and 
I w T as once more in my room with my books. In 
the pages of “ Soli und Haben ” I forgot Mrs. Bray- 
field and Herr Yogel. The next day I went to 
Frankfort to spend a week with a friend, and so the 
tender glances that I had intercepted in the Ton- 
halle garden passed quite out of my mind. 


MRS. BRAYFIELD. 


41 


The evening of my return, however, Mrs. Brayfield 
came to my room, and sat down as usual without 
awaiting the formality of an invitation. She glanced 
mysteriously around, and said, 

“Are you alone?” a question which seemed to mo 
rather superfluous, as my room was small, and scan- 
tily furnished, and totally lacking any places of con- 
cealment. 

Then she said, “ Are the doors locked V 9 

I arose and turned the keys, feeling foolish and a 
trifle exasperated. Then I drew up a chair and sat 
down opposite my guest. 

For a minute she toyed with her eye-glasses; then 
looked lip suddenly, and said, 

“I am engaged to Herr Vogel.” There was a 
pause. I felt too stunned to say anything. Me- 
chanically I took out my handkerchief and wiped 
my forehead. 

“I am going to marry Herr Vogel,” repeated Mrs. 
Brayfield. 

“ What — what are you going to do with him V 9 I 
gasped, feeling it incumbent upon me to say some- 
thing. 

“I)o with him?” echoed Mrs. Brayfield. “Why, 
marry him. What is the matter with you, Miss 
Gray ?” 

This last, said pretty sharply, brought me to my 
senses. I congratulated her, and then, interrogative- 
ly, “ And, of course, Fanny is much pleased ?«” 

“I haven’t told her yet,” replied Mrs. Brayfield. 
“I’ll go and tell her now. I have just ten minutes 
before supper. Time enough.” And with this she 
swept away. 


42 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


Shortly after the bell rang, and I went out and 
took iny place at the supper -table. Mrs. Brayfield 
was already there, serene and rosy. Fanny’s place 
was, however, vacant, and as the meal progressed, the 
absent one did not appear. 

“Where can Fanny be?” said Mrs. Brayfield at 
last. “ She knows supper is ready, for I told her so 
myself. When I came down she had gone to her 
room to wash her hands, as I supposed. I’ll go and 
see what has become of the child — be back directly,” 
and with a broad smile that included us all she left 
the room. 

But she did not return directly. After a while 
the hausfrau looked at me, and I looked at the 
hausfrau , and then both of us looked at Yogel. 

“ Something must have happened,” said I at last. 

“Of course,” replied the hausfrau . “I cannot 
do any good, for I don’t speak a word of English. 
Do you go up, Miss Gray, and find out what is the 
matter.” 

Accordingly I went up to Mrs. Brayfield’s room, 
and rapped on the door. The widow opened it di- 
rectly, and ushered me in. 

“ I am so glad yon have come,” she exclaimed, ex- 
citedly. “Fanny has been talking to me dreadfully 
— dreadfully ! You see I told her all about it before 
supper — how Yogel and I thought we could make 
each other happy, and we had a mutual esteem and 
all that — quite as it should be, you know ; and she 
didn’t say a word, just went into her own room, to 
do her hair, as I supposed, and I came down to sup- 
per as gay as you please. But, now, when I went to 
her room, I found she had been crying until she w r as 


MRS. BRAYFIELD. 


43 


a sight to behold; and she has abused me — positively 
abused me. Aud it is a shame. Why, one would 
think Herr Yogel and I were a pair of children, and 
did not know our own minds. But I shall marry 
him — I shall marry him !” 

At this juncture the door which led into Fanny’s 
room opened, and the culprit appeared, red as to 
eyes, and swollen as to nose. 

“Be good enough to come here,” she said to me, 
imperiously. 

Accordingly I entered her room, she carefully lock- 
ing the door after me. 

“Did you ever hear anything worse?” she said, 
confronting me solemnly. 

I shook my head in what I hoped was a sympa- 
thizing way. 

“Fancy mamma marrying a man so beneath her 
as Ilerr Yogel !” exclaimed Fanny. 

This astonished me more than ever. Evidently 
Fanny did not see what a pitiful fool her mother 
was making of herself ; she only saw in the affair an 
unequal alliance, a view of the matter which struck 
me as totally new. This tragic way of taking it 
quite overwhelmed me. 

“ But she shall not marry him,” said Fanny, after a 
pause — “she shall not marry him. I have been writ- 
ing letters, short ones, you know, to mamma’s broth- 
ers, sisters, and friends — she has six brothers and 
four sisters ; and I have written to her most intimate 
friends also, and to our family lawyer and the rector 
of our parish. I have told them all about it, and 
asked each one to write to mamma upon the sub- 
ject directly. Here ar<^ the notes, fifteen in all. 


44 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


Won’t you give them to the servant to mail this 
evening ?” 

I slipped the fifteen notes in my pocket and stole 
down -stairs. The important missives I put in the 
box on the opposite corner myself. 

During the next week the postman called every 
day. Not only had her six brothers and four sisters, 
and the lawyer and the clergyman, written to Mrs. 
Brayfield, but also each of her dear five thousand 
friends. 

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, one day, “this 
makes the nineteenth letter I have received upon the 
subject. But no matter. The Queen and Beacons- 
field, and Gladstone and J'olm Bright may all write 
if they choose. I will marry Vogel.” 

Meanwhile the object of her devotion trotted off 
to his studio every morning as regularly as ever, and 
Fanny practised scales and studied German with her 
accustomed industry. One day, however, I saw her 
-stop Herr Vogel in the corridor, and give him a 
package of letters. 

“Bead them all,” she said, curtly. Catching sight 
of me, she added, with solemnity, “ I have given 
Herr Vogel the letters to read that mamma has 
recently received upon the subject of her engage- 
ment.” 

Little Vogel hastened away with the package of 
letters in his hand, his shoulders more sloping than 
ever, and his blond hair more faded. 

That evening at supper he did not appear, and 
the next day at dinner the liausfrau said, “Herr 
Vogel left town this morning.” 

This w T as put into English for Mrs. Brayfield’s bene- 


MRS. BRAYFIELD. 


45 


fit. “ Left town !” she exclaimed. “ He will return, 
of course, in a few days.” 

But return he did not. In his room was found a 
bulky package of letters addressed to Mrs. Brayfield. 
Upon being opened, this was found to contain only 
the letters from the indignant relatives and friends 
that Fanny had given him to read. I also was al- 
lowed to become acquainted with their contents, and 
after that I did not wonder that Yogel had run 
away. The letters from Mrs. Brayfield’s brothers 
were blood-thirsty to a Turkish degree. Each of the 
six threatened a different punishment for the unfort- 
unate Yogel. One was going to horsewhip him, an- 
other drown him in a duck-pond, another wring his 
neck, and so on ad nausearn. 

Days went by, and the little, sloping -shouldered 
artist did not appear. Far from being mortified at 
her swain’s abject flight, Mrs. Brayfield seemed only 
extremely anxious to know whither he had fled. 

“ Wherever could he have gone to ?” she w r ould 
exclaim. “ And he need not have been so alarmed. 
My brothers wrote violently, but they would not re- 
ally have done anything. Poor Herr Yogel! He 
has been treated badly; don’t you think so, Miss 
Gray ?” 

To which I, of course, assented. But the comedy 
finally came to an end. Fanny dismissed her Ger- 
man teacher, and her rented piano was borne back to 
the seclusion of the warehouse. She and her mother 
packed up their various boxes and bundles, paid a 
farewell visit to the English clergyman, and one fine 
morning were driven off to the railway-station. 

As I said “ Good-bye,” and wished them bon voy - 


46 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


age , it occurred to me that I had no definite idea as 
to their destination. Accordingly I said, with what 
I hoped was an air of polite interest, “ And where 
are you going, Mrs. Brayfield ?” 

She looked at me for a moment impressively ; then 
said, in a tone of the deepest resolution, “ I am going 
to find Yogel.” 


TOLD BETWEEN THE ACTS. 


W iiom am I looking at so closely ? Do you see 
that man yonder who sits in the fifth loge from us 
on the right — the man with the little blond mus- 
tache? I am looking at him, madame. Two or 
three years ago I knew him slightlj 7 , as travellers 
know each other. It was at Venice that I made his 
acquaintance, although before that I had seen him 
often, and for the first time in London. There I ran 
across him at every corner. He seemed to be always 
strolling about alone and aimlessly. That was in the 
summer. The following autumn I again met him, 
this time in Paris, where as before he strolled about 
the streets drearily, sometimes wandering into a shop 
or cafe, and then resuming his joyless peregrination 
once more. 

In December I went to Nice, and this man was 
nearly the first person I met when I sauntered down 
the Promenade des Anglais* Afterwards at Rome, 
in the Carnival season, I saw him again. Indeed he 
seemed to haunt me like a ghost — a ghost in excel- 
lent-fitting coats and trousers, and irreproachable 
cravats and gloves. 

I left Rome early in April, and travelled leisurely 
northward, and it was the first week in June when I 
found myself in Venice. Ah, madame, those were 
elysian days! I had sunshine by day and moonlight 


48 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


by night, and little by little the peace and quiet of 
the place pervaded my whole being. I did not go 
into a church or look at a picture ; indeed, I begin 
to think that I do not care for art. I was content to 
lie back in a gondola, and let a big stalwart fellow, 
Vespasiano by name, row me where he would. 
Sometimes it was over the sea towards the Lido, 
then through the dark, narrow alleys of the tow. or 
down the stately windings of the Grand Canal. I 
know nothing of architecture, madame; I am very 
ignorant; but those old Venetian palaces are poems. 
Sometimes I would see a window or a door-way that 
was as perfect as a sonnet. Ah, madame, those 
were elysian days ! 

Was I alone? you ask. What a world of meaning 
a woman can put in a little word! Was it the in- 
finitesimal lifting of your eyebrows, or the shadow 
of a smile over your mouth, or the little bend of 
your head that put so much in that word alone f I 
answer your thought — there was no woman at my 
side. Had such been the situation, those days would 
not have been so tranquilly elysian. A woman 
brings delight, I grant, but not often peace, aiid 
those days in Venice were so peaceful! I used to 
lie in my gondola and smoke, feeling only the gen- 
tle motion through the water, seeing only the varie- 
gated houses, and hearing only the cries of the gondo- 
liers. The odor of my cigar gratified another sense, 
fortunately, perhaps, for the learned tourists tell me 
that the smells in Venice are not good. I hope that 
no learned tourist will ever get to heaven. They will 
surely find the drainage bad, and will tear up a Y die 
golden pavements to put down new sewer-pipes. 


TOLD BETWEEN THE ACTS. 


49 


But I knew no learned tourists in Yenice, and was 
badgered by no aesthetic creatures who quoted poe- 
try at me and talked of Titian and Tintoretto. In 
fact I was as near happiness as we mortals ever are. 
My hotel suited me, my digestion was in perfect or- 
der, the moonlight nights on the Grand Canal were 
delightful beyond words, and a tranquillizing convic- 
tion that I had enough money to pay my bills added 
another big drop to my cup of bliss. 

From all this, madame, that I have been boring 
you with, you can understand how smoothly con- 
tented I felt, one evening after dinner, when I found 
myself in the Piazza di San Marco, seated like hun- 
dreds of others at a little table before the Cafe Flo- 
rian. On that little table was a cup of cafe noir , 
and in my hand was a slender, delicious cigarette. 
The band was playing a melancholy waltz, and hun- 
dreds of people were strolling up and down the tes- 
sellated pavement. It was natural, madame, that 
thoughts of the woman I loved came stealing into 
my mind. I did not wish for her; it is well that 
fate has willed that our lives should be separate 
ones. And yet — I thought of her very tenderly as 
I sipped my coffee and smoked my cigarette there 
in the Piazza di San Marco at Yenice. 

And then I chanced to glance up, and I once more 
saw this young man. He, too, was sitting at a little 
table, and near me. Our eyes met, and we lifted 
our hats simultaneously, and, after a moment’s pause, 
he said, “ A fine evening?” 

Madame, do you remember Heine’s dissertation 
updii the possible horrible consequences that may 
follow if one does not cap the remark, “ Fine weath- 
4 


60 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


er to-day?” with “Yes, to-day we have fine weath- 
er?” 

Heine’s grotesque ideas flashed through my mind, 
and I replied, half mechanically, “ Yes, a fine even- 
ing.” 

There followed a long silence. The band played 
softly, the people continued to stroll slowly up and 
down the tessellated pavement ; I lighted' a fresh cig- 
arette, I looked at my neighbor, and — I pitied him. 

You know, madame, that I write sometimes, and 
when next I feel my fingers itching after a pen I 
shall write an essay upon the inconvenience of hav- 
ing a soft heart. My soft heart has brought nothing 
but trouble upon me. Therefore it was not without 
a little feeling of fear that I leaned towards my 
neighbor, and said what everybody says under such 
circumstances, 

“ Is this the first time you are at Venice ?” 

He glanced at me, not indeed so gratefully as I 
had expected. 

“ I have been here, I think, twenty times, perhaps 
twice that ; so often, in fact, that I do not know how* 
often,” he replied, in an uninterested tone. 

“ Then it is a favorite city with you,” I persisted. 

He smiled ; that is, his mustache moved a little. 

“ One must go somewhere,” he said, rather grimly. 

At this, madame, I fumbled after my eye-glass, and 
looked at the young man more closely. He was not 
so young after all. His blond hair had a little gray 
in it, and there were lines about his mouth and eyes 
that told a significant tale. 

I was interested in him, my curiosity was roused. 
Men are every whit as curious as women, and not 


TOLD BETWEEN THE ACTS. 


51 


half so honest about it. It lias always been my con- 
viction that Adam was secretly consumed with a 
desire to taste the forbidden fruit, but he knew his 
Eve, and reflected that he must have a little patience. 
Sooner or later Eve would surely fall a victim to her 
curiosity, and after tasting herself would urge the 
fruit upon him, which he always planned to eat; 
then ever after, when the subject was mentioned, 
he could look penitential but reproachful, and say, 
“ The woman tempted me.” 

But I will be honest this time, and confess that 
my curiosity was roused in the case of this old-young 
man, and it was sheer curiosity that impelled me to 
cultivate his acquaintance. 

And my efforts were successful. At first we met 
generally in the piazza after dinner, and over our 
coflee or liqueur enjoyed a little desultory conver- 
sation. 

Very desultory, indeed, it was, for he seemed to 
take no interest in politics, literature, sport, stocks, 
anything. I tried him with every imaginable bait, 
but always in vain. He would answer me certain- 
ly, but in a singularly unflattering, absent manner. 
Once or twice the idea flashed across me that our 
friend was perhaps a little daft, but when he turned 
his clear, gray eyes upon me, all doubts as to his 
mental strength vanished. They were keen eyes, 
and trained to an extraordinary degree. They nev- 
er glanced restlessly hither and thither — indeed, the 
whole personality of the man was tranquil — but they 
were always on the alert, seeing everything, forget- 
ting nothing. 

Once he and I had been to St. Lazare together, 


62 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


and coming back we fell as usual into deep silence. 
I was watching through half-closed eyes a boat that 
was gliding through the water before us, its big sail 
glittering in the sunshine ; and then there was a bird 
that dipped down, almost to the waves, and then 
soared upward again into the blue sky ; and in the 
sky was a single little white, puffy cloud, that kept 
changing into all manner of shapes, from a plump 
cherub to a grinning dragon ; and the boat, and the 
bird, and the cloud, I lay and looked at in silence. 
Some bells began to ring in Venice, and the sound 
came clearly out over the water towards us, rous- 
ing me a little from my dreams and visions. I won- 
dered whether the man at my side was asleep, and 
I turned and looked. Asleep indeed ! his gray eyes 
were awake enough ! He was watching with singular 
intensity a barca that was approaching. There were 
two people in it, a man and a woman. As the boat 
drew nearer and nearer, the woman almost imper- 
ceptibly lowered her parasol, just enough to hide her 
face from us. As she passed we heard a low laugh, 
and caught sight of a white, well-formed hand. The 
man at my side was transformed. He shouted rapid- 
ly to our gondolier to turn back and pass again the 
barca. Vespasiano obeyed, and in a second we shot 
rapidly past the boat, so rapidly, indeed, that the 
woman had no time to lower her parasol again, and 
we saw her face. It was that of a slender young 
girl, with a rose-petal complexion and a pair of co- 
quettish brown eyes. 

The man at my side bestowed one rapid glance 
upon the girl and then sank back into his place, 
drawing a long breath as he did- so. 


TOLD BETWEEN THE ACTS. 


53 


I discreetly asked no questions, and we glided on 
in silence for several minutes; then iny companion 
gave a little laugh, not free, indeed, from embarrass- 
ment. 

“ The fact is,” said he, “ I am looking for a cer- 
tain woman.” 

“And do you think she is in Venice?” I haz- 
arded. 

“ It is not unlikely,” he replied, in a tone that end- 
ed the short conversation most decisively. 

.1 think, madame, you will agree with me in con- 
sidering this disclosure rather extraordinary and 
decidedly puzzling. After that I looked at my com- 
panion with a new and deeper interest. I did not 
know whence lie had come, or whither he was go- 
ing; he seemed rich, and was most assuredly a gen- 
tleman. I only knew that he was looking for a cer- 
tain woman. 

One evening he did not appear as usual in the pi- 
azza, nor did I see him next day ; so I went to his 
hotel and asked for him, only to be informed that 
he had left Venice suddenly that very morning. 

I lingered another week, and then went on to 
Switzerland. But I do not like Switzerland, al- 
though I admit the hotels are excellent and the 
mountains very big indeed. This scampering after 
scenery, however, seems to me so absurd ! People 
get up at some pastoral hour to climb mountains and 
see sunrises, and the aesthetic murmur, “Ah! very 
beautiful,” and talk about clouds and Turneresque 
effects, and it seems to make them very happy, but 
to me it is, to put it mildly, fatiguing. 

At Lucerne I met my friend De Mestaus, and I 


64 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


asked him if lie, too, was an amateur de la belle na- 
ture , as the French guide-books put it. 

“The scenery I like best is the scenery at the 
Comedie-FranQaise,” he said, in his excellent Eng- 
lish. I silently tendered him my hand, and a week 
later we dined together at the Cafe Bignon. 

But, after all, Paris in July is not quite pleasant, 
and once more I roamed away, this time to the Rhine 
land. 

You will not be surprised, madarne, when I tell 
you that as I stepped on board the Kaiser Wilhelm 
at Coblenz I saw my Venetian friend on the upper 
deck. We met and shook hands, and I looked him 
in the eyes questioningly. 

“ Not yet,” he said, answering my thought. 

We chatted together a little on the steamer, and 
we both stepped ashore at Bonn and went to the 
same hotel. There we spent some time together, 
very much as we had spent the days at Venice ; that 
is, we roamed about, often in utter silence, he scan- 
ning every face he encountered, and I — I going 
about with my head in the clouds, as is my wont. 

One afternoon we were in the garden of the Flotel 
Kley. You know the garden looks out over the 
river, and is unpleasantly popular, but we secured a 
table in a retired corner, a little distant from the 
gangs of beer -drinking, domino -playing students. 
The day had been warm, but now it was after sun- 
set, and a cool breeze was blowing over the river. 
The garden filled rapidly. Besides the students there 
were the English tourists, the men in their checked 
suits, and the women in their poke bonnets and ap- 
palling boots. Here and there was a German fami- 


TOLD BETWEEN THE ACTS. 


55 


ly, the father drinking beer and nursing a long pipe, 
while the children jumped heavily about him, and 
the mother sat by, knitting with stolid persistency. 

I do not know which is the more exasperating, an 
American woman tilting to and fro in a rocking- 
chair, or a German woman knitting, knitting, knit- 
ting, until the needles seem so many restless, shin- 
ing imps. I fancy that it requires a very high de- 
gree of — of — breeding to enable a woman to sit still, 
quite still, not to rock, or do fancy work, or even sway 
a fan. How restful is the repose of such women, 
and how rare are they ! I never saw one among the 
German women, and to a hopelessly indolent indi- 
vidual like myself this unceasing industry is mad- 
dening. 

My friend, if I may call him such, gazed at the 
students, at the tourists, and at the German family 
groups for a while, a sardonic smile playing about 
his lips. 

“Ho, this is not at all the sort of thing she would 
like,” he said, half to himself. 

“ You refer to the woman for whom you are search- 
ing?” I said, interrogatively. 

“ Yes,” said he ; then added, after a slight pause, 
“ My wife.” 

Smile if you like, madame, and let the shadow of a 
sneer play about your smile, but I confess boldly that 
I felt something moisten my eyes as that poor fellow 
said “ My wife.” 

He looked at me closely. 

“Yes,” he repeated, “my wife. She was not my 
wife very long, and then she left me. He was a low 
little cur, but it is extraordinary how these sneaking 


56 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


hounds please women sometimes, and lie pleased her, 
I suppose. Anyway, she went with him, and I can- 
not find either of them. He is one of those men 
who hide ; he would hide himself anywhere, for he 
is a coward through and through. But I shall find 
them both some time.” 

“ And then 2” said I. 

He smiled oddly. 

“ And then 2” he repeated. “ I do not know. I 
used to think that I would drown him as one does a 
rat, and that I would punish her gently, as a man 
must punish a woman, but still she should suffer. 
How, however, I do not know. I do not think of 
him often, but if I could only see her — only see her, 
you know 2” 

He broke off suddenly. Some students near 
clinked their glasses together and shouted “ Prosit !” 
Then once more deep silence reigned through the 
garden. 

After a long pause my friend drew from his pock- 
et a velvet case, which he handed me. On the out- 
side was stamped the name “Mary,” and within there 
was a miniature of a very beautiful woman. It was 
not the mere beaute du diable , that dangerous me- 
lange of complexion and bright eyes, but beauty of 
feature and form, heightened by a certain sweetness 
of expression, and made noble by a look of power 
and strength. It was not the face of a weak wom- 
an, and in my heart of hearts I envied the man who, 
sneaking hound that he probably was, had neverthe- 
less been so loved by such a woman as this. I closed 
the case and returned it to the pale, eager-eyed man 
who sat opposite me. 


TOLD BETWEEN THE ACTS. 


51 


“ It is a face never to be forgotten,” I said. 

“ So I have found,” lie remarked, with a grim smile. 

Madame, I fear I am boring you with this long 
story, and the time is flying, too. The curtain will 
go up again soon, and we must give our attention 
then to the woes of Aida. Story-telling, however, 
has its victims, like absinthe or opium, and holds its 
prey with even so relentless a clutch. 

Well, to be brief, my friend and I lingered only a 
day or two longer in Bonn, and then parted, he go- 
ing to Russia, and I no farther than Etretat. The 
following winter I spent in Algiers, as no one knows 
better than your amiable self, and during the next 
summer I was driven about restlessly hither and 
thither by my Wandering Jew spirit. In September 
I installed myself once more in Paris, and resolved, 
as I had a hundred times before, never again to quit 
it. My most frequent visitor in those days was my 
nephew, a youngster of eighteen or nineteen, fresh 
from dictionaries and tutors, and in Paris for the 
first time. I tried my best to satisfy his anxious 
mother, and keep the lad out of mischief, and really 
wearied myself in my duties as chaperon. But final- 
ly he said to me, 

“Bother the Louvre, and the Hotel Cluny, and the 
Pantheon, and all the rest of ’em ! The fellows who 
have been in Paris don’t talk about the Louvre and 
the Hotel Cluny ! I want to see a cafe chantant, 
and Mabille, and — Oh well, Uncle Charles, you 
know better than I do what I mean.” And he be- 
stowed a monstrous wink upon me. 

I sighed resignedly, and that very evening we 
went to Mabille to enjoy the dreariest of spectacles, 


58 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


simulated mirth, and pranks that are all paid for in 
hard cash. 

A day or two after this I took my nephew to a 
certain cafe much frequented by young ladies with 
bella- donna -brilliant eyes and an abundant flow of 
light conversation. Some young ladies of the same 
description sing and dance on a small stage, and the 
audience is composed chiefly of callow boys and 
imbecile graybeards, who smile fatuously, and are 
happy in thinking what devils of fellows they are 
after all ! 

We ordered some refreshment for ourselves and 
for a small person with a yellow bonnet who had 
seated herself insinuatingly beside my nephew, w T ho 
looked rather uncomfortable, I am delighted to say. 

No, madame, you need not look shocked, or unfurl 
your fan ready to use it as a screen. I am not go- 
ing to say anything dreadful, and there is your hus- 
band down below, and in a minute he will be here to 
lend you the support of his presence. 

I paid no attention to my nephew, whom the small 
person in the yellow bonnet was attempting to en- 
gage in conversation, but gazed about me in silence, 
feeling immensely moral and philosophic. Soon my 
attention w^as attracted by a tall, well-formed woman 
who entered the cafe alone, and stood in the door- 
way, apparently irresolute., It flashed across me that 
I had seen her face before. It was a ruin, but the 
ruin of great beauty. 

After pausing a moment, she glided slowly across 
the cafe, halted not far from us, and began to chatter 
with a fat, bald-headed Jew. Acting upon an im- 
pulsive idea, I called out, in a low tone, 


TOLD BETWEEN THE ACTS. 


59 


“ Mary !” 

She turned quickly and glanced at me. 

“ So your name is Mary V 1 I said, in English. 

An Englishman near by made a blasphemous jest 
upon the name, and in the midst of the laugh that 
followed the woman slipped away. But I had rec- 
ognized her beyond a shadow of doubt. It was the 
woman, madame, for whom the man in yonder box 
is searching. Bray God he may never find her ! 


IN A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


Sitting here in my arm-chair to-night, with pict- 
ures of the past rising and fading away before my 
mind’s eye, I see many things I wish I could not see, 
I remember many things I would fain forget. Above 
all does the memory of a night in a Florida cracker’s 
cabin thrust itself upon me, and will not be banished 
by the cheerful blaze of the fire at my feet, or be 
wafted away in the fragrant smoke of my cigar. I 
will tell you the story, although I know full well 
that if you be an intensely practical personage you 
will laugh, and dub me a sentimental old fellow. 

My daughter and I were in Florida for the winter. 
Jacksonville, with its big hotels and its Saratoga-like 
air of fashion, wearied us, and we went to St. Au- 
gustine ; but there, also, we were haunted by women 
in Paris gowns, and men in London coats. Perhaps 
my daughter and I have a touch of the savage lin- 
gering in us ; but be that as it may, we certainly 
longed for the “pathless woods,” for the “forest 
primeval.” 

Now', a friend of mine, a New' York physician of 
sporting tastes, had given me the address of a shoot- 
ing-box on the w'est coast of Florida, and had told 
me that, although it was in a wilderness, the inn was 
kept by very decent people, and that there was noth- 
ing to prevent my daughter going thither, provided 


LN T A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


61 


she did not mind “roughing it” a little. My daugh- 
ter had roughed it before, and now professed no 
objections to roughing it again ; so one pleasant day 
in March we bade our friends in St. Augustine adieu, 
and, having embarked on the extraordinary small 
steamboat rejoicing in the name of the Ohahumhee , 
started on a voyage up the Ocklawaha. 

Even stranger and more surprising than its name 
is this river yclept the Ocklawaha. It is indeed 
nothing but a deep channel in a swamp, so narrow 
that in some places our little boat scraped against 
the cypresses and water-oaks that grew up out of the 
water on either side, and so winding and tortuous 
that it was like sailing in the tracks of a drunken, 
reeling water-goblin. Sidney Lanier calls it “the 
sweetest water-lane in the world — a lane which runs 
for a hundred miles of pure delight betwixt hedge- 
rows of oaks and cypresses and palms and magnolias 
and mosses and manifold vine-growths ; a lane clean 
to travel along, for there is never a speck of dust in 
it save the blue dust and gold dust which the wind 
blows out of the flags and lilies ; a lane whicli is as 
if a typical woods ramble had taken shape, and as if 
God had turned into water and trees the recollection 
of some meditative stroll through the lonely seclu- 
sions of his own soul.” 

This description floated through my mind as I 
sat on the bench that encircled the pilot-house and 
watched the progress of the OJcahinnkee through the 
water. I had almost written trees , for it was hard 
to believe that we were not sailing over dry ground 
and through a forest. Often I thought, as I do 
sometimes when I am driving along a narrow conn- 


62 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


try road, “Suppose we should meet a wagon coming 
towards us V 9 

It seemed to me that if we should meet a boat, 
either it or our Okaliumkee would have to climb a 
tree. I made a remark to this effect to our negro 
pilot, whereat he smiled broadly. 

“We has one or two passin’-places,” he replied, 
lie could not devote much time to conversation, for 
he was fully occupied with guiding the boat around 
corners so sharp as almost to be angles. He did it 
very skilfully, but he could not prevent the Oka- 
hwnkee from going full tilt into the shore every now 
and then. There would be a soft, crushing sound, 
as the keel of our little boat slid smoothly np a gen- 
tle mud-bank, a crackle as it poked its intrusive nose 
among the reeds and bushes, and then the pilot 
would call out, “ Dar we is ag’in !” 

Instantly half a dozen darky deck-hands would 
rush to the prow, and by means of long poles assist 
the reversed paddle-wheels in persuading the Oka- 
humkee to resume the channel. The first time we 
ran ashore, the passengers — a half-dozen perhaps in 
all— were frightened, and I believe one lady was so 
alarmed that she remained in the cabin for the rest 
of the voyage and read the Bible. But no amount 
of Bible-reading could straighten out the Ocklawaha, 
and we ran ashore again and again, and finally came 
to look upon it as an ordinary incident of travel. 
We even grew used to seeing the alligators, black, 
ungainly shapes, that, at the approach of the steam- 
er, tumbled awkwardly off into the water and swam 
slowly away. When night came on, a fire of pine 
chips was kindled on top of the pilot-house, and the 


IN A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


63 


flames lit up the channel and, cast a lurid light among 
the trees that stood tall and gaunt on either side, and 
whose branches almost met overhead. Sometimes 
a great bird would start up from its nest and flap 
heavily away. One of these birds had an unearth- 
ly mournful cry. I asked the pilot what bird it 
was. 

“Dey calls it a limpkin,” he replied, straining his 
eyes as he spoke to see ahead into the mysterious, 
winding channel. “ Lille mo’ light!” he called out; 
and the man overhead put a fresh pine log on the 
Are that, blazing up brightly, made every tree stand 
out clear and distinct. 

Meanwhile one of the group of negro deck-hands 
at the prow had begun to sing a plaintive melody, a 
sort of hymn ; but breaking off suddenly, he rolled 
out the gayest tune imaginable, although this seemed 
to be a hymn too. One of the verses was — 

“ If religion was a thing that money could buy, 

The rich would live and the poor would die.” 

Then came a chorus that was taken up by all his 
companions — 

“ Oh, I’se troubled, I’se troubled about my soul!” 

There were either a great many verses to this 
hymn, or else the soloist had a knack at improvisa- 
tion, for even after I had gone to my state-room for 
the night I heard the refrain ringing out melodiously 
from time to time — 

“ Oh, I’se troubled, I’se troubled about my soul!” 

On aw T aking the next morning I found that the 
steamer had stopped, and peering through the port- 


64 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


hole I saw that we were made fast to a wharf. I 
caught a glimpse of two or three frame cabins, and 
beyond them a thin pine forest. I knew then that we 
had arrived at Silver Springs, the head of navigation 
on the Oeldawaha. The hamlet takes its name, of 
course, from some marvellous springs that bubble up 
out of the earth and expand into a sort of pond. 
Looking down into the clear depths, I could see fish 
darting hither and thither in water that was perfectly 
transparent, but tinted a brilliant blue-green as rich 
and vivid as the changing hues of a peacock’s tail in 
the sunshine. 

It was at this place that we bade adieu to the 
mocking-bird. Whether these birds haunt the in- 
land forests I do not know, but certainly the last 
I heard was here. He was perched up in a lofty 
tree, and was pouring forth song, chatter, and what 
sounded very like laughter. It was hard to believe 
that this was the same bird I had heard a day or two 
before at St. Augustine, singing so sweetly and sad- 
ly in the moonlight that the strain was as melodious- 
ly melancholy as a nightingale’s. The poets have 
neglected the mocking-bird ; but I often think that 
Heine would have understood him and delighted in 
him who is indeed himself the Heine of the tree-tops, 
for, though mocking, deriding, ridiculing his fellow- 
songsters, he can be as tender and loving in his notes 
as the man who wrote, 

“ Du bist wie eine Blume.” 

I once read somewhere a sonnet, written by I 
know not whom, which portrays the bird better than 
any other verse I know : 


IN A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


65 


TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. 

“Winged mimic of the woods, thou motley fool, 

Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe ? 

Thine ever ready notes of ridicule 
Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. 

Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe, 

To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, 

Arch-scoffer and mad Abbot of Misrule, 

For such thou art by day; but all night long 
Thou pour’st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, 

As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song, 

Like to the melancholy Jaques, complain, 

Musing on falsehood, violence, and wrong, 

And sighing for thy motley coat again.” 

Forgive me. It is an old man’s fault to wander, 
and the mocking-bird lias carried me far away from 
the lonely depths of Florida to the heights of Par- 
nassus. Indeed I was listening to his 

“Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,” 

when a large, old-fashioned barouche, drawn by two 
gaunt horses, one a hand higher than the other, 
emerged from the pine woods. This was the equi- 
page that was to take us to Ocala, a town in the in- 
terior. Our driver, a grizzled, rheumatic old fellow 
in a faded red -and -yellow livery, told us that the 
carriage had formerly belonged to a rich planter 
who had lived in the neighborhood “ befoali de 
wah.” He told us, too, where and when the carriage 
had been bought, and how much it had cost, and 
then added, mournfully, “De kerrige was Mass’ Clif- 
ton’s kerrige, and I was Mass’ Clifton’s nigger. Ain’t 
much left o’ kerrige nor nigger no more !” 

Poor old fellow ! I can see him now, sitting up 
on the box of the rickety barouche, the rags of his 

5 


66 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


red- and - yellow livery fluttering forlornly in the 
breeze, and his beaver hat showing itself rusty and 
dinted in the bright sunshine. He was proud of us 
— for he said that any one could see we were not 
“ poor white trash and when we reached Ocala, 
and drew up before the long, low, wooden tavern, 
he straightened his rounded back out and cracked 
his whip so bravely that all the pigs and pickanin- 
nies ran squealing out of the dusty road. 

We stayed at this tavern over Sunday, and on 
Monday started for our long drive across-coun try to 
the Gulf coast. The wagon we had hired, which 
was of the description known as “ lumber-box,” drew 
up before the door at nine o’clock. Our guns, fish- 
ing-rods, trunks, etc., were stowed away, we took our 
seats, and, amid good-byes from the loungers on the 
tavern piazza, drove off almost as triumphantly as we 
had come. 

For a while there was a sort of road, and we 
passed houses from time to time, but soon the houses 
degenerated into negro cabins, few and far between, 
and the road became, as our driver said, “ mighty 
dim.” This driver struck me as a surly, close-mouthed 
fellow. I could not understand his sullen taciturn- 
ity — a taciturnity that was proof against attempted 
conversation and even a cigar; for negroes, and es- 
pecially negroes in the South, are full of fun and 
guffaw. But at last my daughter called my atten- 
tion to his hair. It was as black as coal, but straight 
as a clay pipe-stem ; and by-and-by, when he turned 
about, I noticed that his nose was a well-cut aquiline, 
and that his lips were thin. As my daughter had 
surmised, this man was a good deal more Seminole 


IN A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


6 1 


Indian than negro. In spite of the assurances of 
the hotel-keeper that the man was a good guide and 
trustworthy, I felt a slow suspicion creep over me. 
There we were, a gouty old fellow and a girl of 
twenty, in the wilderness of a Florida pine forest, 
with a surly Indian-negro for our sole guide, philos- 
opher, and friend. To add to my unpleasant sensa- 
tions, the road grew so “ dim ” that at last the traces 
of wheels were hardly more distinct than the traces 
of a baby-carriage rolled over a lawn. There was 
nothing to prevent us from driving in any possible 
direction, for there was no underbrush, and the tall 
pines grew up at intervals almost as regular as the 
pillars in a cathedral. Indeed, looking down some 
of these long aisles, we could see the trees meet in 
the distant perspective. Underfoot there was only 
a thin, short grass, and this was often burned away 
cleanly and completely by forest fires. We saw these 
fires running here and there through the grass, fol- 
lowing a line just beside our wagon. There was no 
danger — the grass was too thin for that — but it looked 
unpleasant to us, although the horses regarded it no 
more than if it had been a babbling brook, and the 
driver said concisely that it was “no ’count ’t all.” 
Sometimes, however, the fiames would twist up and 
around a tall pine, burning the bark off and leaving 
the tree naked and scarred. The rustle of the fire 
in the grass was the only sound. Adown the long 
vistas we saw droves of deer galloping along, some- 
times pausing in their flight to look at us for an 
instant, and then leaping away again faster than be- 
fore. A man on horseback could have followed them 
easily enough ; and how delightful it would have been 


68 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


to run a horse through that wood, leaping now a 
tree - trunk in the path and now a little ribbon of 
fire in the grass, while ahead the deer scurried away 
in alarm ! Please note that I said a man on horse- 
back could have followed the deer easily enough : 
I said nothing about catching them. 

A halt at noon for dinner, and then on again, this 
time in silence, for both my daughter and I had 
grown weary, and were content to jog on without a 
word, while the day faded slowly aw^ay and twilight 
set in. 

We had been told of a house to stop at for the 
night, and our driver had declared that lie had been 
over the road often before, and knew the house as 
well as if it had been his own; but I noticed that 
he guided his horses in an undecided way, and he 
finally stopped a man -who was passing by on horse- 
back and asked the way to Mortimer’s. The man 
gave him some directions, whereupon our driver 
turned his horses square about, and we went back 
in our tracks, and plodded on stolidly as before. 
Twilight faded into night, and the moon rose clear 
and cast her bright, unearthly light through the 
pine-trees. Suddenly a figure on horseback was seen 
coming slowly towards us, and a man with a big 
sombrero drawn down over his eyes drew up beside 
the wagon. 

“ Wlia’s Mortimer’s ?” said our driver. 

The man on horseback surveyed ns in silence for 
a full minute. We could just see his gaunt, un- 
shaven face in the moonlight. “ Ye’re on the wrong 
road,” said he, deliberately. 

“ I reckoned so,” said our guide. 


IN A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


69 


Then came another silence. A big bird flapped 
heavily out of a nest over our heads. It was as still 
as the grave, and just about as cheerful. 

“Where the devil is Mortimer’s?” said I, sharply. 

“ ’Bout five mile farther on,” replied the man on 
horseback. “ You must go back till you come to a 
swamp, then pull sharp round to the right; and keep 
straight ahead till you come to a house. That’s Mor- 
timer’s. Evenin’.” And he rode slowly away. 

Accordingly we turned about again, and went on 
and on until the swamp stretched out before us. 
The moon shone bright over the black, shallow wa- 
ters, in the midst of which stood a tall, solitary crane, 
poised on one long leg, its head huddled down among 
its feathers. At our approach it stretched out its 
thin neck, and turned slowly to look at us, then, with 
a sublime indifference, resumed its former attitude 
of statuesque repose. 

It seemed hours after passing the swamp and its 
lonely, cynical tenant when our driver reiued up his 
horses, and said, without so much as turning towards 
us, “ This is Mortimer’s.” 

I rubbed my eyes and looked, and saw a fair-sized 
log cabin standing in a small clearing. The door 
of the cabin opened, and disclosed two figures silhou- 
etted against the light of a fire that gleamed bright 
through the room. These figures remained motion- 
less a minute, then they advanced slowly towards us. 

“ Mr. Mortimer ?” I began, interrogatively. I heard 
a soft laugh. 

“ Our name is Spooner,” came the reply, in a man’s 
voice. 

Whereat my daughter spoke up quickly. “We 


70 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


are belated travellers,” said she ; “ will you give ns 
lodging for the night ?” 

“We’re mighty poor,” came the reply again, this 
time in feminine accents ; “ but you’re right welcome 
to what we’ve got.” 

The man, meanwhile, had let down the bars, and 
without a word more we drove into the clearing, 
amid the baying of a hound and squealing of pigs. 
We alighted, and were led by our hosts towards the 
house, which was built up on piles, and in the space 
beneath I caught a glimpse of the pigs that had 
taken refuge there at our approach. 

The man helped my daughter up the irregular 
steps that led to the door of the cabin, while the 
woman rendered me a like service. We found our- 
selves in a fair-sized room, with a great cavern of a 
fireplace yawning open at one end. On the gleam- 
ing ashes the woman laid a pine log, that blazed up 
brightly and cast a dazzling light through the cabin. 
I looked at our hostess with curiosity as she stood 
there by the fire, for the few words she had spoken 
had been so gentle that I wondered whether her face 
corresponded. The blazing fire showed her to be a 
tall, slim creature, with hair, skin, and eyes of one 
shade of brown. She looked like a doe. 

“Ye’re mighty hungry, I reckon,” said she, as she 
motioned us to seats by the fire. 

“ No,” answered my daughter ; “ we brought plen- 
ty to eat with us.” 

I detected the anxiety in my daughter’s voice, and 
I knew that she feared a Florida banquet more than 
she did the Ku-Klux Klan. “ You must not trouble 
yourself to prepare a meal,” I added. 


IN A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


71 


Then the man, who was sitting back in the shadow, 
laughed in his sleepy way and came forward by the 
tire. There was nothing of the desperado, of the cut- 
throat, in his face. It was almost childish in its in- 
nocence. “ Ye don’t suppose we’d let ye go to bed 
empty, do ye?” said he, with a broad smile. “We 
don’t hev many visitors down this way, but we ain’t 
forgot how to treat ’em when they do come; hev 
we, Jane ?” 

“ I reckon not,” echoed Jane, gently. She had 
been busy among some pans and kettles that stood 
in a dark corner, but now she glided out into the 
firelight and took up a position beside her husband. 
They gazed at us and we at them in utter silence for 
a long minute. Finally the woman leaned forward 
and touched my daughter’s cheek. “ What do you 
put on your face to make it so white and red ?” she 
said, naively. 

My daughter laughed. “Nothing at all,” said she. 
Naturally fair-skinned, the Southern sun had burned 
a bright red patch in each cheek. The woman gazed 
at her incredulously; then she moved softly away 
and brought a basin of water out of a dark corner. 
She dipped her apron into it, and washed my daugh- 
ter’s face vigorously ; but the more she rubbed the 
redder it grew. The man laughed. “There ain’t 
nothin’ there,” said he. “ The gals where she comes 
from ain’t so brown as our gals be.” 

The woman with a little sigh returned the basin 
to its corner. “I never see anythin’ like onto it,” 
said she, taking up her old position by the fire, and 
gazing at my daughter with renewed interest. She 
seemed to recollect something after a while, for she 


72 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


retreated to the dark recess once more, returning 
soon with a large kettle, which she hung over the 
fire. Into this kettle she poured a quantity of wa- 
ter, and then with another sigh seated herself by the 
fire and began peeling potatoes. The man in his 
corner stroked his beard solemnly and said not a 
word — only gazed at us. The water began to sing 
in the kettle, and outside the rising wind soughed 
through the pines. A vague sense of comfort stole 
over me. Pretty soon the big hound that had bayed 
so at our approach jumped through the open door- 
way, and came up to the group round the fire. lie 
looked wistfully at his master. He knew that some- 
thing had happened that made his nap by the fire 
an uncertainty. 

“ This ain’t no place for you, ole fellow,” said the 
man. The dog wagged his tail, came a little nearer, 
and laid a remonstrating paw on his master’s knee. 
“Ye don’t mind the dog, I reckon?” said the man, 
appealingly, to us. 

“We like him,” answered my daughter, stretching 
out her hand and laying it caressingly on the hound’s 
head. 

“ Jane !” cried the man, suddenly. 

The woman rose in haste, and without a word her 
husband pointed to my daughter’s small, white hand, 
then touched it gently. 

“ Good Lord !” he exclaimed. 

“ I never see anything like it afore,” repeated the 
woman, wonderingly. She gazed at it for a moment, 
and then went back to her potatoes. Her curiosity, 
however, had now passed the speechless point, and 
she began to put questions to us, her husband joining 


IN A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


73 


in, too, after a while. I told them where we came 
from, why we had come, whither we were going, and 
how long we meant to stay. In the midst of this 
our driver appeared with an armful of guns and fish- 
ing-rods, which our host took from him and stood up 
in a corner. Meanwhile the woman had /set supper 
upon the table, and we sat down to it and ate brave- 
ly, my daughter doing her part with a dogged reso- 
lution that made me smile. There was a stew made 
of potatoes and what I guessed was venison, and tea 
sweetened with molasses. There were no spoons nor 
forks, a knife doing duty for all these. 

“ I was afraid it wouldn’t be good enough for you,” 
said the woman, in accents of deep gratification. 

I lit a cigar and offered one to my host, which 
he refused, preferring his accustomed pipe. Then it 
was my turn to ask questions. 

“No, we ain’t got no children,” said Mr. Spooner, 
in answer to my query. “We hev been married 
’leven year, and I reckon we won’t never hev any 
boys and gals. I don’t care, but my woman kinder 
hankers arter a young ’un. My woman’s ’nuff for 
me. We hev to work hard, but we don’t complain. 
She don’t get drunk, never, and she can’t say as I 
ever touched her with a horsewhip nor nothin’.” 

“ Down in the holler,” broke in his wife, “ there’s 
a man and woman livin’ in a cabin, and they gits 
drunk and she beats him awful. But they ain’t mar- 
ried — and we be.” There was a world of pride in 
her voice. 

“ There is a lot of mean whites roun’ here,” the 
man continued, after a pause. “ They don’t try to 
live decent, they don’t try to hev a cabin that’ll keep 


74 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


rain out, they don’t care for nothin’ but whiskey' 
But my woman and I kind o’ like to hev things 
nice.” He turned and smiled at her as he spoke. 

“ There is something very pastoral about this,” said 
my daughter to me. “I feel as though I had met 
Adam and Eve.” 

This was an aside, spoken hastily. The man had 
risen and brought my guns out of the corner. He 
handled them knowingly, and finally said, “ Them’s 
almighty good guns, but I don’t reckon ye kin kill 
any more deer with ’em than I kin with my old 
flintlock.” 

“ Good deer-sliooting round here ?” I queried, with 
all a sportsman’s eagerness. 

“ Yes, it’s good enough, only I ain’t got no time 
for it. I hev potatoes to plant and hogs to look ar- 
ter, and I ain’t got no money to waste in powder and 
shot. And then I’d rntlier kill alligators.” 

I faced him in amazement. 

“He had an almighty good dog once, and the 
alligators eat him,” put in his wife. ' “ Since then lie 
kills all the alligators he kin find.” 

“’Tain’t no sort o’ use tryin’ to keep dogs here,” 
continued the man, mournfully, “ and they’re derned 
nice critters to hev. The pond back of the cabin 
is full of alligators, and I can’t keep the dogs from 
goin’ in for a swim. This old dog here is too know- 
in’ to go near the pond, but lie’s so old that he ain’t 
no good. And I hate all alligators. They looks 
kind o’ stupid, but they are knowin’ as the devil. 
Why, if I go down by the swamp and ki-yi like a 
pup the derned critters poke their heads up and look 
around for a fresh dog to eat. An’ they ain’t had a 


IN A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


75 


dog for a year an’ more, but they don’t forgit. An’ 
they’ll gobble off a white man’s leg in no time, but a 
nigger kin swim aroun’ ’em all day and not a derned 
alligator will touch him.” 

“Is that so?” I exclaimed. 

“ True as Bible,” he replied, solemnly. 

“ I hev got a Bible : I kin read,” said the woman. 

Her husband laughed a little. “ She’s so derned 
proud of her readin’,” said he, indulgently. “ There 
ain’t a woman roun’ here — no, nor a man neither — 
that kin read. She was born up in Georgia; she 
ain’t a Florida cracker, like me.” 

The woman glided away and brought out a pile of 
old newspapers. “ I’ve read ’em all,” she said, terse- 
ly, proudly. 

“ I’ll send you some more when I go home,” said 
I, carelessly. 

The woman’s sleepy brown eyes lit up. “Will 
you, sure f” said she, her low voice full of an intense 
eagerness. 

“ Of course,” said I, then turned to her husband 
and went on talking with him about the shooting. 

Hot long after, the circle round the fire was broken 
up and we went to bed. I will not bore you with 
details about our sleeping accommodations. We 
slept well and soundly, although there were no spring- 
beds and undressing was an impossibility, as man and 
wife, my daughter and I, all shared the same room. 

When I awoke the next morning the door of the 
cabin was standing open, and a bar of sunshine 
streamed into the room. Through the chinks in the 
log walls came the fresh morning air, and beneath 
the flooring I could hear the pigs grunting cheerfully. 


76 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


I stepped to the door and looked out. Just round 
about, the land was cleared, and I saw Spooner work- 
ing away diligently making a fence. There never 
seemed to me a more absurd bit of work. Ilis cattle 
and pigs roamed through the forest, and why he had 
enclosed his clearing with a rail-fence I could not 
understand. All round about rose the tall pine-trees, 
except back of the house, where glittered the treach- 
erous waters of a swamp alive with alligators. 

Breakfast was soon prepared, and Spooner came 
into the cabin and joined us at table. “Wal,” said 
he, “ now I s’pose yer goin’ oft again. I’m denied 
sorry you can’t stop a week.” 

“ Perhaps you will go on with us,” said my daugh- 
ter. 

“ Gosh !” he exclaimed, “ I’d like ter ; but who’d 
stay and take care of Jane ?” Whereat Jane smiled 
contentedly. 

Meanwhile our driver had harnessed up his horses, 
and we were ready to go on towards Ilomosassa. As 
delicately as I could, I asked Spooner what I owed 
him. I had a feeling that he was no grasping rustic. 
There was something of a gentleman about him, 
“Florida cracker” though he owned himself to be. 

“ Nothin’ at all,” he said, in answer to my question. 
“ We don’t keep a tavern, and we was derned glad to 
see you ; and ef you come back this way you must 
stop with us again.” Then a thought seemed to 
strike him, for his face lit up, and he said, with a 
smile, “I tell ye what ye kin do: ye kin send my 
woman some papers. Ye know ye said suthin’ about 
it last night, and she’s been botherin’ me ever sence, 
a’xin’ me ef I thought you meant it.” 


IN A CRACKER’S CABIN. 


1 7 


The woman smiled guiltily, and a deep flush stole 
over her dark cheeks. “ I hope you won’t forget 
’em,” she murmured. 

“ No, I shall not forget them,” said I. “ Tell me 
the post-office and county again.” 

She did so, and then added, “ The postman comes 
through here on horseback once a week. He’ll be 
s’prised to hev suthin’ for me. He never brought 
me nothin’ yet. He’ll be terribly s’prised!” And 
she laughed like a child. 

Then we drove off, they watching us until the trees 
hid us from sight. 

My story is ended. Shall I tell you why the 
memory of that night in a Florida cracker’s cabin is 
so unpleasant to me? Because I never sent that 
woman a single newspaper. 'When I reached home, 
I put it off from time to time, until finally I found 
to my dismay that I had quite forgotten the address 
she had given me. Sometimes a sense of my careless 
ingratitude stings me so that I think I must go down 
to Florida and look up Spooner and his wife. She 
is so disappointed! I picture her waiting for the 
postman to come ; she sees him riding slowly towards 
the house, and with a beating heart she hastens 
to meet him. I can see her dark, eager face, and 
remark her expectant expression change to one of 
grieved disappointment when the postman shakes his 
head and rides on into the woods and is soon hidden 
from her sight by the pine-trees. Her husband tries 
to console her by saying that the folks up North are 
a mean lot, any way — that there ain’t a decent white 
man there. He abuses me roundly ; but I don’t be- 


18 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


lieve she quite loses faith in me. She rails against 
the mail-service, indeed, and gives it as her opinion 
that the postman steals the papers and sells ’em. 
Meanwhile there is still a glimmer of hope in her 
breast that some day the postman will be “ terribly 
s’prised,” halt, and hand her a package that has come 
all the way from New York. 

And here I sit in my library, wearied by the heaps 
of journals and magazines about me. 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 

I. 

At the close of a clear, cold day in early Decem- 
ber, a man plodded doggedly along the turnpike 
that leads into the village of Shandaken. Ankle- 
deep in mud was this turnpike in the spring, and in 
summer ankle-deep in dust; but now it was frozen 
fast and hard, and the fall of the traveller’s heavy 
boots resounded sharply. On either side of the road 
stretched dreary fields, with here and there a lonely 
tree standing up black and gaunt against the sky, 
through which the setting sun had striven to infuse 
a pinky flush. There were no farm-houses near, no 
red-painted barns, but only the rickety buildings of 
the brick -yard, deserted now, and with the great 
wheel that a blind gray horse had pulled round and 
round all summer, frozen fast in a heavy black 
slough. The whole landscape had a chilled, de- 
spondent aspect, and the bare trees and fields seemed 
to pray the tardy snow to come and cover their 
nakedness. 

It was a steep pull up the hill ycleped “Brick- 
yard,” and when the wayfarer reached the top he 
sat down upon a bowlder to rest. Just below him 
lay the village, from whose comfortable houses the 
evening lamps began to shine out one after another. 
The chimneys sent up delicate curls of smoke, that 
to an imaginative person might have wafted an odor 


80 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


of hot suppers. But the traveller seated there on 
the bowlder did not look like an imaginative person, 
given to weaving delicate fancies or spinning senti- 
mental reveries. He was tall, gaunt, and bearded, 
clad in a cheap, ill-fitting suit of gray, and his large, 
ungloved hands were those of a man who swings a 
hammer. His whole appearance was quite in keep- 
ing with the hard, lonesome landscape. There was 
a joyless look on his face as he sat and gazed down 
at the village : it was the look of a man who would 
be welcome in none of those snug dwellings, by 
none of those cosey firesides ; and it was with a sort 
of sigh that he finally picked up his satchel and 
trudged forward again along the frozen turnpike. 
A gig drawn by a wiry roan mare rattled suddenly 
up behind him, and as the driver passed he bestowed 
a shrewd, inquiring look on the wayfarer. 

The man afoot smiled a little. “ The doctor’s 
mare is good for another ten years, I guess,” he said 
aloud to himself. 

On down the road, through the dilapidated toll- 
gate, over the bridge, the man tramped steadily and 
with the easy confidence of one to whom every rod of 
ground was familiar. He passed through the strag- 
gling village street, by the post - office, blacksmith’s 
shop, and tavern, and halted finally before a neat 
cottage standing in a small, well - kept yard. He 
paused irresolutely at the gate for an instant, then 
lifted the latch softly and stole up to the window, 
whence a gleam of light streamed through the 
blinds. He could see into a small room, simply fur- 
nished indeed, but with an air of comfort pervading 
it. There was a table in the middle set for supper, 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


81 


and the lamp cast a cheerful gleam over a shining 
metallic teapot, some cups and saucers, a great pile 
of fresh white bread, a pat of butter, and a generous 
dishful of raspberry jam. There was a little boy 
sitting at the table — : a rosy-cheeked, flaxen-haired, 
ten-year-old lad, who drummed impatiently with a 
spoon. Soon there entered a slim, trim woman, 
whose large, light-brown eyes had an indefinable ex- 
pression of hardness in them. Her hair was brought 
smoothly down over her temples, and her collar was 
spotless. She looked neat, methodical, energetic, 
and as coldly unsympathetic as a china doll. 

But the little fellow at the table ruled her with a 
rod of iron. He ate jam and bread-and-butter man- 
fully, drank a great tumbler of milk, made the cat 
sit up and submit to having her meek nose smeared 
with jam, which she declined to eat, and indeed com- 
ported himself with grave independence and silent 
disregard of his mother’s remonstrances. 

The man outside the window watched and w T aited 
patiently until the supper was ended and the dishes 
put away. Then he stole softly up to the porch and 
rang the bell. 

The door was opened by the boy. 

“Is your — your father at home?” the stranger 
asked, hesitatingly. 

“He is dead,” answered the boy, evidently much 
astonished to find that all the world was not ac- 
quainted with this fact. 

“ Your mother, then ?” 

“Yes, she’s in here. Come along.” And the child 
piloted the tall stranger into the sitting-room. 

“Mrs. Decker, I suppose ?” said he. 

6 


82 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


The woman looked up at him quickly ; a patch of 
red flashed into each cheek. 

“I am Mrs. Decker,” said she. “Won’t you sit 
down ?” 

He seated himself deliberately in a large rocking- 
chair, and put hat and satchel on the floor. 

“ I called to see your husband,” lie remarked. 

“ I told you she hadn’t any husband,” broke in the 
boy. “ I told you he was dead.” 

“Tommy,” said Mrs. Decker, “ go and sit in the 
kitchen for a while.” 

She turned sharply towards the child, who stood 
staring gravely into the stranger’s face. 

“Ho; I guess I’ll stay here,” Tommy answered, 
with much deliberation. 

“ How, you run along, sonny,” said the man, per- 
suasively. “ You must do as your ma says.” 

Yery reluctantly Tommy turned and went into 
the adjoining room. 

“ I do not care to talk about my husband before the 
child,” said Mrs. Decker, resuming her sewing. “ It 
is best he should know as little as possible about his 
father. Mr. Decker died West some four years ago.” 

“So he died West,” repeated the man, in a reflect- 
ive way. “I was a great friend of Eben’s, and I 
am sorry to hear lie’s dead. Did he leave you com- 
fortably off?” 

“ He ran away from me, left me in debt to every- 
body, and with a child to support. For a week be- 
fore he went, he lay dead-drunk at the tavern. I 
had to pay the bill for the liquor myself.” Mrs. 
Decker never looked up as she spoke, and her tones 
were quiet, but her lips tightened ominously. 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


83 


The stranger seemed, however, rather affected by 
this curt recital of what she had suffered at her hus- 
band’s hands. He brought out a large red handker- 
chief and wiped his face as though it were bedewed 
with perspiration. “He wasn’t much of a husband, 
I guess,” he said at last. 

Mrs. Decker laughed. “ Do you call that being 
much of a husband?” she said, pausing in her work 
and looking straight into the stranger’s face. “ You 
say you were a friend of his ; and perhaps you can 
defend him.” 

“Ho, no; I can’t defend him!” the man cried, 
hastily. “ Nobody could defend him. But I’m sor- 
ry to hear he is dead. I had business that brought 
me this way, and I thought I’d look Eben up. I’ll 
say good-night now, Mrs. Decker.” 

He went out again into the nipping air, and walked 
rapidly back to the tavern. Entering the bar-room, 
he found no one there but the landlord himself, Jo- 
siah Bedle — a great, hearty, rubicund fellow, a Fal- 
staff to the life. “It is a cold night,” he said, with 
stentorian geniality. “ Won’t you have something 
to warm you up?” 

“ I don’t drink,” the stranger replied. 

“ What ! Temp’rance ?” 

“ Yes, temp’rance — teetotaller.” 

“Gosh! you don’t say so!” exclaimed Mr. Bedle, 
looking at his guest suspiciously. 

“ I’d like to have some hot supper, though, and I 
suppose you can give me a bed for the night,” said 
the stranger, walking up to the stove and stretching 
out his benumbed hands. 

“ Yes, you can have supper and a bed, of course.” 


84 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


And therewith Bedle waddled heavily out of the 
bar-room. 

The stranger, left alone, gazed about him curious- 
ly, and finally deserted his post by the stove to in- 
spect a dark spot under the bar-room counter. lie 
was bending down over it when Bedle re-entered. 

“ Halloo ! What the devil are you doing there V 9 
he cried, sharply. 

“I saw a queer- looking spot just under the coun- 
ter, and I wondered what it was,” his guest replied, 
tranquilly seating himself near the stove. 

“ That’s a blood-stain,” said Bedle, pausing and 
looking at it. “Eben Decker once fell just about 
there and bled a quart. The blood kinder soaked 
into the wood.” # 

“ Was he drunk ?” the stranger asked, indifferently. 

“Drunk as a lord,” was Mr. Bedle’s reply. “In 
fact, for about a year before he cleared out he was 
drunk pretty much all the time. You couldn’t keep 
him away from a bottle of whiskey.” 

“ Did you try very hard ?” said the stranger by the 
stove. 

There was a certain dry, peculiar intonation in the 
words that made Bedle turn about and look at him 
sharply. “ Gosh ! I ain’t no man’s keeper,” he ex- 
claimed. “ If a chap comes here and wants to buy 
whiskey, and I have got it to sell, it ain’t my lookout 
whether he gets drunk on it or not. But you’re a 
temp’rance man : any one could see that you don’t 
know about the ways of men who take a glass once 
in a while.” 

The stranger spoke not a word for some time; 
then he said, slowly, “ I used to know Eben Decker.” 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


85 


“You don’t say so!” Mr. Bedle exclaimed. “Did 
you know him out West?” 

“Yes; I knew him out in Colorado. He was a 
hard chap, was Eben ; but he wasn’t all bad.” 

“ All bad ?” echoed the landlord. « Well, I should 
think not. There wasn’t a kinder, better - hearted 
man in the country than Eben — that is, till lie got 
drunk. But there was a queer streak in him. He 
cleared out one day without saying a word to any- 
body, and the next we heard was that he had been 
killed in a row somewhere West. I guess his widow 
wasn’t very sony. She led a pretty life of it with 
him ; but she gets along first-rate by herself — takes 
boarders in the summer, and does all sorts of things. 
She’s smart. Fact is, I always thought she was a lit- 
tle too smart for Eben ; kinder sharp, you know- 
snap your nose off. The fellows used often to say 
that Eben Decker never would have been a sot if he 
hadn’t had such a ’tarnal smart, sharp sort of a wife.” 

The stranger shook his head very gravely. “ Yon 
are wrong there,” he said. “ From what I know of 
Eben Decker, I am sure he set great store by his 
wife. But the drink was too much for him. It is 
too much for most men.” 

With this the stranger rose and faced the fat, 
prosperous landlord solemnly, 

“ There, there !” cried Mr. Bedle, in dismay ; “ don’t 
treat me to a temp’rance lecture. Come along and 
get your supper. It must be ready by this time.” 
And he led the way to the dining-room, a great, 
barn-like place, with long tables scattered irregularly 
through it. On one of the tables stood a dingy lamp, 
that illuminated a little space and cast queer shad- 


86 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


ows through the gloom surrounding it. A small 
cloth was spread over a tiny area of this long table, 
and here Mr. Bedle motioned his guest to be seated, 
and then left him to the tender mercies of a slattern- 
ly, sleepy wench, who brought him in some smoking 
tea and a dish of ham and eggs. 

The stranger ate his. supper hastily, and then re- 
turned to the bar-room. A group had formed round 
the stove by this time, and lie took his place in the 
circle, lighted his pipe, and smoked it in silence. At 
first his presence cast a restraint upon those convivial 
souls, but a few glasses of hot whiskey -and -water 
loosened their tongues and set them to talking and 
joking together. Once or twice they tried to draw 
him into conversation, but his short answers soon 
quenched their curiosity. One young farmer did in- 
deed try to banter him a little, but there was some- 
thing about the stranger’s tall, muscular frame and 
brawny fists that impressed the drinkers of whiskey- 
and-water. Temperance man that he was, he looked 
as though he might be very unpleasant if his anger 
were excited, and he was allowed to smoke his pipe 
in peace. At ten o’clock he bade them a grave 
good-night, and followed Bedle to a small, cold bed- 
chamber. Outside, the wind whistled sharply, and 
came through the ill-fitting window in gusts that 
made the tallow dip flicker fitfully. 

“ Hope you’ll sleep well,” said Mr. Bedle. “ Good- 
night.” And he rejoined his friends in the bar- 
room. 

The sun the next morning shone down bravely on 
the fields, all glittering with hoar-frost. After an 
early breakfast the stranger went out on the narrow 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


87 

piazza that ran along the front of the tavern, and 
stood there, evidently undecided whither he should 
direct his steps. A group of children chattering to- 
gether came past, and went up the road towards the 
school-house that clung to a bleak hill-side a quarter 
of a mile away. Some distance behind them ap- 
peared Tommy Decker, alone, and rather overloaded 
with a big geography, an equally big slate, and two 
or three smaller, chubby books, that kept slipping out 
from under his arm. Just as he reached the tavern 
he felt the books sliding, slowly but surely. He gave 
one look at them and one at his overladen hands, and 
then gravely backed himself up against the fence, 
and thus shoved the books into place. 

The man on the tavern piazza smiled at this panto- 
mine, and then slowly descended the steps and fol- 
lowed the sturdy little fellow, trudging so bravely 
along, with the ends of a gay red scarf fluttering out 
behind. A few long strides and Tommy Decker felt 
himself overshadowed by the tall figure of the man 
who had been at the house the night before. 

“ You’ve got too much to carry, Tom,” said the 
man, gently. “ Suppose you let me put some of those 
books in my pocket.” 

Tom looked at him shyly. “But I’m going to 
school,” said he. 

“Well, I’ll go ’long to school with you,” the man 
replied, with a smile. “ I want a walk this morn- 
ing.” 

Tommy, still feeling rather shy, gave him a dog- 
eared arithmetic, a spelling-book, and a Second Head- 
er, and these three volumes were slipped into the 
stranger’s capacious pockets. 


88 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


“Now let me have hold of your hand, Tommy,” 
said he, grasping the little red-mittened paw, and ac- 
commodating his strides to the chubby legs of his 
companion. For a while they walked on in silence. 
“Do you like to go to school?” said the man at last. 

“ I have to,” Tommy answered, concisely. 

“ Your mother says you must, eh ?” 

“Yes; ’cause I’ve got to be educated, you know. 
You ain’t the new school-master, are you ?” 

“ If I was, would you be afraid of me ?” 

Tom looked up into his face, and said, with a con- 
fidential smile, “ No.” 

They walked on after this in silence almost to the 
foot of the hill. Then, at the school-house door, 
there appeared a spectacled young man, who shook a 
big bell fiercely. 

“I must run,” said Tommy, disengaging his hand. 
“ I shall be late.” 

The stranger halted, gazed earnestly at the child 
for an instant, then lifted him, pressed him close to 
his breast, and kissed him twice. “ Be a good boy, 
Tom,” said he, as he set him upon his feet and hand- 
ed him his books. He stood there and watched the 
youngster race up the hill, and, as he stood and 
watched, two big tears rolled down his cheeks and 
trickled into his bushy beard. Lost in thought, he 
turned and retraced his steps to the Widow Decker’s 
cottage. He did not ring the bell this time, but went 
round the house and knocked at the side-door. In 
response to the summons to “come in,” he entered 
the warm kitchen, where Mrs. Decker, neat and calm, 
was ironing. 

“Good-morning,” said she, in a tone that asked as 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


89 


plainly as words why lie was troubling her at such 
an unseemly hour. She did not for one minute 
pause in her work, but taking a fresh iron from the 
stove, applied a moist forefinger to the under side of 
it in a critical way. The hot iron sizzled satisfacto- 
rily, and thereupon she began to pass it with swift 
dexterity over a small embroidered collar. 

The tall man paused in the open door -way, the 
crisp air blowing in about him, and stared at her for 
a moment in a silence that was weighted with im- 
port. “ Jane, don’t you know me ?” said he at last. 

Mrs. Decker replied not a word, but the color 
flamed into her face, and she pressed her lips tight 
together. 

“Jane,” said he, “I’m Eben. I can prove it easy 
enough.” 

“You needn’t to,” she answered, dryly. “I knew 
you the minute you came in last night.” 

He seemed paralyzed by this, and stood motionless, 
then entered the kitchen, closing the door gently be- 
hind him. “ You ain’t very glad to see me,” lie 
said, in mild accents. 

She ironed the collar vicionslj 7 . “I don’t know 
why I should be glad to see you,” she returned. 

“ Well, I don’t know ; it would seem sort o’ natural 
if you were glad to see your husband again.” 

She laughed a short, fierce laugh. 

“Yes, yes, I know, Jane,” he exclaimed, hastily. 
“I wasn’t an over-and-above good husband; but I 
ain’t the same man now. I work hard, and I don’t 
drink a drop.” 

She looked incredulous. “I suppose you found a 
gold-mine out West,” she said, with quiet satire. 


90 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


“No, I didn’t find a gold-mine; but I came East 
two years ago, and ever since that I have been work- 
ing in a foundery at Hartford. I have got a good 
place, Jane, and I could keep you and the child first- 
rate.” 

“We can keep ourselves, thank you,” said sh^ 
snappishly. 

He passed his hand over his beard, and looked at 
her steadily. “ I ain’t going to use force or law to 
get you back,” said he, “ but I’d like to take you and 
Tommy to Hartford. We could live nice, and I’d 
insure my life.” 

“ Yes ; and how long would it be before you got 
drunk, and came home and gave me a scar to match 
this ?” she cried, with intense passion, lifting up a lock 
of brown hair that Hid a small red mark on her fore- 
head. 

The man put his hands up before his face : her 
reminder was a blow between the eyes for him. 
“Jane,” he said, at last, “you must forget all that. 
I w r ant you and the boy ; I am all alone, and I can’t 
stand it. I could do well by you and Tommy. It 
' ain’t natural for a man to live as I do.” 

“ Then get another wife,” said Mrs. Decker. “ I 
won’t trouble you any if you want a dozen wives. 
There are plenty of women in Hartford who would 
like to marry a prosperous, steady man like you.” 

He gazed at her in silence. 

“You ain’t hardly human, Jane,” said he, slowly. 
“ I made up my mind last night to go away without 
troubling you again, after hearing you speak of your 
husband as you did; and then you knew it was me 
all the time 1 I thought it would be best just to go 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


91 


away without saying a word; but this morning I 
went along to school with Tom, and — ” His voice 
broke. “Jane,” he cried, “ the child is as much mine 
as yours !” 

Not a line of his wife’s face softened* 

“ I see,” said he, “ it’s no use urging you.” He 
brought a scrap of paper out of his pocket, and 
scrawled a few laborious lines thereon. “Here is 
my address,” he continued. “ If you ever want help, 
or if anything should happen to Tom, you might let 
me know.” He held out the paper to her, but she 
would not even look at it. “ Good Lord !” he ex- 
claimed, “you ain’t human.” He dropped the paper 
on the table beside her, and then, without a word 
more, left his wife to her solitude. 


PART II. 

’ The long winter finally gave way to spring. Mrs. 
Decker might be seen in her little yard, digging flow- 
er-beds, and sowing seeds, and setting out the plants 
that she had cherished so carefully in the house all 
winter. She was not the sort of woman one would 
picture cultivating flowers, but nevertheless she had 
a passion for them, and was never happier than when 
down on her knees before a verbena-bed with a trow- 
el in her hand. But she could not inspire Tom with 
any enthusiasm. He regarded a rake and spade as 
implements of torture, and would wield them only 
under compulsion. And it grieved her, as some 
mothers who love books are grieved by children who 
consider reading a bore. Mrs. Decker had a dim no- 


92 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


tion that if Tom would only find pleasure in month- 
ly roses he would grow into a great and good man. 

“ Here is a package of seeds for you,” he cried, 
running into the yard one day. “ Mr. Ward says 
they are swlet-peas, and that nobody will have any 
like them but you and him.” 

Mrs. Decker dropped the long vine that she was 
training over a trellis, and took the package eagerly. 
The seeds were wrapped loosely in a newspaper, and 
she saw the heading of the sheet. It was an old 
copy of the Hartford Courant. Filled with an in- 
definable curiosity, she glanced up and down the col- 
umns of the paper. This paragraph caught her eye : 
“Married. — On the 14th March, by the Kev. John 
Grant, Ebenezer Decker and Mary Lasher, both of 
this city.” In her astonishment she let the seeds 
fall out of the paper, and then with a beating heart 
bent down to gather them up. She was free ! Eben 
could never trouble her any more — could never come 
and take Tom away, as she had been fearful he 
might. She smiled triumphantly, and carried the 
newspaper and the seeds into the house. The latter 
1 she put into a drawer carelessly, but the newspaper 
she locked up in an old desk where she kept some 
relics, her marriage-certificate, and Eben’s Hartford 
address. She wondered what Mary Lasher looked 
like — whether she was dark or fair, young or old, 
prudent or giddy. She tried to picture Eben as a 
bridegroom, and her mind reverted to the day when 
she had been married to him. He was a inerry- 
eved, blithe young fellow at that time, full of jokes, 
and always singing or whistling. And now — a queer 
sensation stole over her, and for some unaccountable 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


93 


reason she seized the broom and swept the kitchen 
as it had not been swept before in years. 

“ Why, this is a regular house-cleaning,” said Tom, 
discontentedly, when he came in and found his moth- 
er with an old green veil tied over her head and 
sweeping like a tornado. “ You clean house all the 
time. I’d like to know where I am going to sit.” 
And he gazed at his mother with reproach. 

“ It is all done now,” she answered, humbly. “ Go 
into the other room for a while till I get things 
dusted.” Eben married ! This Miss Mary Lasher 
must have been a fool to many a man she knew 
nothing of. Very likely she was one of those flighty 
things who would die unhappy unless she could have 
“ Mrs.” on her tombstone. And she wasn’t his wife, 
after all ! Ay, there was the best part. A thought 
flashed into Mrs. Decker’s brain. Suppose Eben was 
really very fond of this new wife — as fond as he 
had been of his first? She was probably a young 
girl, and he was foolish about her, as middle-aged 
men always are over girls. But, after all, what did 
it matter? 

The next morning Mrs. Decker found a long gray 
hair in her brush, and the sight of it discouraged her. 
She leaned over the old-fashioned dressing-table and 
gazed at herself intently in the mirror. The fore- 
runner of a deep wrinkle lined itself across her fore- 
head ; but, as she looked, a faint blush stole into her 
face, and she smiled in triumph; she was not so 
plain after all. 

When she dressed she put a scrap of ribbon at 
her throat instead of the accustomed old brooch, 
and then she went down-stairs and prepared a most 


94 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


tempting breakfast. She wondered if Eben’s new 
wife made such coffee, such light biscuit. The 
thought that she was probably some giddy young 
thing who did not know how to set forth tempting 
viands was exhilarating. Eben had always been very 
appreciative of a well-spread table, and the widow’s 
bosom swelled with a sweet sense of revenge as she 
gazed about her sitting-room that morning. It was 
the picture of cheerfulness. Through the eastern 
window came the spring sunshine, and in the warm 
rays sat the big gray cat, purring and blinking, too 
contented even to look at the birds that outside were 
twittering blithely together. There was a clean, 
pungent odor of coffee pervading the atmosphere, 
and the table with its white cloth and shining china 
was an object that carnal man would have gazed 
upon with satisfaction. And then there was Tom, 
rosy and serene, taking all the goods the gods — 
that is, his mother — provided, as no more than his 
due. 

From that day Mrs. Decker entered into rivalry 
with her unknown successor. Always the most me- 
thodical and neatest of house-keepers, she now vexed 
her soul over the problem of the beautiful. She 
strove to follow the advice of the domestic column 
of the weekly paper, and in accordance with its in- 
structions she one day placed a vase with flowers 
upon the dinner-table, and then awaited Tom’s com- 
ments with anxiety. But Tom said never a word : 
he looked at the nosegay with great gravity. There 
was, however, a comical twinkle in his eye, such a 
twinkle as his father had once had, and before which 
Mrs. Decker felt rather shamefaced. It was the 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


95 


twinkle in the eye of a man who is amused at fem- 
inine caprice, but is loftily indulgent. 

^Esthetics, however, soon lost their charm for Mrs. 
Decker, and she wearied of trying to excel so vague 
an adversary as Eben’s new wife. Her feeling of 
emulation gave way to one of pity. She felt sorry 
for the poor girl whom Eben had so deceived. 
Once, as she sat in the twilight thinking of the 
wrong that had been done, the tears almost came to 
her eyes. Great was Tom’s astonishment when he 
found his mother sitting thus alone in the fading 
light, and looking out of the window with an expres- 
sion of sadness on her face. 

“ Are you sick?” he asked. 

“No; I am not sick,” she replied, “ but I feel 
badly.” 

“You are thinking about papa,” he said, with awe. 

The widow made no answer, but, with something 
very like a sigh, rose and lighted the lamp. 

Mingled with her pity for the victim was resent- 
ment towards the deceiver, and this feeling grew as 
fast as the dandelions in the grass. . She could not 
banish her false husband from her thoughts. As 
she worked about the house, mended Tom’s trousers, 
even when weeding her beloved garden, the memory 
of his perfidy rankled in her heart. Her first wak- 
ing thought was one that made the color flash into 
her cheeks and her eyes snap, and she found that in 
the night she awoke to dwell upon the faithlessness 
of the man she had once trusted. Sometimes an 
uncomfortable sensation crept over her as she re- 
membered how she had treated him when he came 
to implore her to live with him again, but she com- 


96 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


forted herself with the reflection that her conduct 
conld not palliate his crime. A longing — vague at 
first, but that grew momentarily — to confront the 
guilty man, to wither him with her scorn, scorch him 
with her blazing indignation, took possession of her. 
At last, one day in early summer, a man walked into 
the bar-room of the tavern and announced that the 
w r idow Decker had gone to Hartford on business. 
The assembled cabinet listened to this news, and dis- 
cussed it gravely. 

“ You needn’t tell me it’s business,” said Mr. Bedle, 
emphatically. * “ She has lived here all her life, and 
never had any business in Hartford before, and it’s 
very likely she’s had business there all of a sudden. 
Oh, very likely, very likely !” 

His sarcasm was so severe that it silenced the oth- 
er members of the cabinet for a full minute. 

“ Well, what’s your idea ?” quoth one at last. 

“ My idea? Well, when a smart, spry widow takes 
to wearing ribbons, and looks as though butter 
wouldn’t melt in her mouth, and then goes off on 
business, my idea is that the business is with a par- 
son.” 

A white-haired old toper, whose lips were always 
trembling as though with the weight of the profani- 
ty that was ever upon them, chuckled in senile de- 
light. “ I guess you’ve hit it, Josh,” said he. 

Mr. Bedle looked as though it were impossible for 
him not to hit it every time, but he said nothing. 

Meanwhile the clerks in the office of a certain 
large foundery at Hartford had looked up from let- 
ters and ledgers to stare at a slim, neatly -dressed 
woman who stood in the door-way. She was no Ion- 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


97 


ger very young, but as she stood there the color came 
into her face and made her look youthful and even 
pretty. “Is there a workman here by the name of 
Eben Decker ?” she said. 

A portly, bald-headed young man who sat at a 
desk near the window smiled affably. “ Yes,” said 
lie ; “ Eben Decker has been in our employ two or 
three years.” 

This was the junior partner, a bachelor and gal- 
lant, and his light-blue eyes rested approvingly upon 
the trim figure before him. 

The unaccustomed scene and the eyes fixed upon 
her abashed the widow Decker and gave a touch of 
soft, womanly timidity to her appearance. “ I would 
like to see him,” said she. 

The junior partner sent a clerk out to call in 
Decker. “And, as I suppose you would like a pri- 
vate interview,” he added, with a smile, “just step 
into this room.” 

Thereupon he led her into an inner office — a small 
room containing a large table and six arm-chairs. A 
minute later Decker entered. 

He had on a big leather apron, and his rough flan- 
nel shirt was open at the neck, and the sleeves were 
rolled up, disclosing his brawny arms. He looked in 
these familiar trappings twice the man he had in his 
ready-made Sunday suit. “Jane!” he cried. He 
closed the door behind him and came up close to 
her, the ruddy color fading out of his face and an 
anxious look gathering in his eyes. “ Is Tom dead?” 
he asked, almost in a whisper. 

“No,” she said, gazing at him fixedly. “Eben,” 
she continued, solemnly, “I know all about it.” 

7 


98 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


The guilty man looked at her in perplexity. “ What 
do you mean ?” said he, roughly. 

A smile of scorn curled her lips. “Ah, you would 
like to deceive me,” she said. 

“ Now, see here, Jane,” said he, in a brisk, matter- 
of-fact tone : “ I can’t leave off work to be blowed up. 
If you have got anything to say, say it.” 

“ Then I will say it,” she exclaimed, hotly. “ I 
mean that I know you are married.” 

A droll look flashed into his face: “Well, I don’t 
know as there is anything wonderful in that. If you 
ain’t aware I’m married, I don’t know who is.” 

“ I didn’t come here to be laughed at,” she con- 
tinued, her eyes snapping with anger. “ I came here 
to tell you that I knew you had gone and married 
some other woman ; and you are a bigamist, Eben 
Decker — that’s what you are.” 

He pursed up his mouth and whistled. “ Some- 
body has been lying to you,” he said, good-naturedly. 

“Lying!” she repeated, her voice trembling. “I 
saw it in the paper with my own eyes — Ebenezer 
Decker and Mary Lasher.” 

“Well, it ain’t me,” said Eben. He looked at his 
wife curiously for a moment, then added, “But if it 
had been, you’d have been pretty mad, eh, Jane ?” 

She made no reply. 

“I guess, Jane, you’ve got a kind o’ soft spot in 
your heart for me yet — because otherwise you wouldn’t 
have cared if I had married fifty Mary Lashers.” 

Mortified and overwhelmed at the mistake she had 
made, she said nothing. The fiery speeches she had 
composed were useless now. 

“ But you had no business to suspect me of any 


DECKER’S SECOND WIFE. 


99 


such dirty doings,” lie continued. “Ebenezer ain’t 
my name, and Decker is as common, ’most, as Smith. 
You ought to know that, whatever my failings were, 
I never was the kind o’ man that goes around get- 
ting girls into trouble. You ought to be ashamed of 
yourself.” 

“How do I know it ain’t true, after all?” she mur- 
mured, not quite daring, however, to look him in the 
face. 

He was silent a minute, then said, “ Jane, you ought 
to have your ears boxed. But if you want proof, go 
out and ask any man in the yard. They all know 
that I am living alone in a boarding-house; and a 
devil of a way to live it is, too.” 

“ I believe what you have said,” said she, quite 
humbly. “ I’ll go now, I guess.” 

But he stretched out his hand and took hers. 
“ Hadn’t you better say you will come back and be 
my second wife yourself ?” said he. 

She looked up into his face, her lips quivered, and 
unaccustomed tears sprang into her eyes. 

“ There, there, Jane,” he exclaimed, hastily, putting 
his arm around her, and patting her cheek with awk- 
ward tenderness. 

Again she looked up, a smile struggling around 
her lips now. “ Oh, Eben !” she cried, “ what do you 
suppose Tom will say ?” 


THE SOUL-SISTERS. 

PART I. 

“ And how do you like Florence ?” said Mrs. Col- 
ton, “ and how often have you been asked that ques- 
tion?” 

“As I have been in Florence only twenty -four 
hours, I have not been asked that question very of- 
ten,” I replied, “ but I can answer it enthusiastically. 
Florence is delightful. I said that when I awoke 
this morning and saw the Campanile through my 
bedroom window ; I said it when I crossed the 
Ponte Vecchio; I said it when I entered the dusky 
Duomo * but I said it most fervently when I found 
myself in your drawing-room this afternoon.” 

Mrs. Colton smiled. “ The same old Dick,” she 
said, pensively. 

I do not object to being called Dick ; everybody 
calls me Dick; but when a man is getting just a lit- 
tle gray — when he discovers that he can no longer 
eat and drink all sorts of things at all sorts of times 
— when eye-glasses cease to be merely ornamental — 
then to have the adjective “ old ” tacked to one’s name 
is not quite agreeable. Of course I did not utter 
these reflections : I merely sipped my tea, looked at 
Mrs. Colton, and sighed. To be sure, she was a few 
years my junior; and in the soft light of the room, 
shaded from the bright winter sunshine by rose-col- 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


101 


ored curtains, she looked that day not an hour past 
four-and-twenty. No wrinkles, no gray hairs were 
visible; but I contented myself with the reflection 
that the gray hairs and wrinkles were there, hidden 
though they might be by Heaven alone knows what 
feminine jugglery. Before her was a little table, 
whereon stood a dainty tUe-<h-tUe tea-set. She 
leaned back in her chair, holding a pretty painted 
cup in her hand, and looked as though she had 
drunk afternoon tea ever since she had cut her teeth. 
The truth was that, until her husband died and she 
went to Europe, she ate beefsteak and fried potatoes 
at half-past seven, beefsteak and mashed potatoes at 
one, dried beef and apple -sauce at six, dusted her 
ten - by - twelve parlor herself, had one new gown a 
season, wore two -button gloves, and went to the 
Methodist church. I knew this, and she knew that 
I knew this, but — 

“Will you ring, please ?” said she. “The fire is 
getting low.” 

Accordingly I rose and pulled the bell-rope, and 
a solemn fellow in livery entered and put a bit of 
wood the size of my pen-holder on the fire. 

“ And how do you mean to amuse yourself here ?” 
Mrs. Colton said, after a long pause. “ Are you go- 
ing to join the American clan and be. frivolous ?” 

“ I don’t know anybody in the American clan,” I 
replied, “except yourself and a certain Miss Benton. 
She used to teach school in Hartford, and my sister 
was her favorite pupil. I shall go and see her to- 
morrow, but I doubt if she will introduce me into a 
frivolous set, unless, indeed, she has been European- 
ized out of all recognition. She may have devel- 


102 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


oped into a leader of fashion, but I cannot imagine 
her as anything but a prim and somewhat severe 
spinster. I don’t suppose you are acquainted with 
her.” 

“ Everybody in Florence knows Miss Benton and 
Miss Ambler,” said Mrs. Colton. “ They are celebri- 
ties in their way, and are called the Soul - Sisters. 
They are so fond — so devoted. They are wedded to 
each other.” 

As she spoke, Mrs. Colton pursed her lips, rolled 
up her eyes, and gazed at the ceiling with an expres- 
sion of comic sentimentality. 

“ Miss Benton is writing a book,” she continued, 
“and Miss Ambler paints pictures, and both are 
converting naughty Roman Catholic Italy to stern 
Scotch Presbyterianism. They rescue little raga- 
muffins out of the street, and put them in a school 
where they learn to read the Bible and wear clothes 
enough to cover them decently. Poor little ragamuf- 
fins!” — here Mrs. Colton smiled sympathetically — ■ 
“they would be so much happier in rags, and gam- 
bling for centesimi,” 

“ I never heard of Miss Ambler,” said I. 

“No? Well, she came to Florence four or five 
years ago, and Miss Benton fell in love with her, 
or she fell in love with Miss Benton, or they fell 
in love with each other. They eloped. They fled 
to Venice, and spent their honeymoon in a gondo- 
la. After a decorous interval had elapsed they re- 
turned to Florence, took a small apartment, and set 
up house -keeping. Each has a little money; and 
a little money with a great deal of love goes far 
in Italy, you know.” Mrs. Colton looked full of de- 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


103 


moniac mischief as she spoke these last words, and I 
felt a shiver run down my back. Frankly, I am 
afraid of a sharp, satirical, amusing woman. 

“ It is not Miss Ambler’s first affaire du cceur ,” 
she continued. “Years ago she loved another — a 
man whose name I don’t know. In fact, nobody 
knows the name; but everybody knows the story. 
He was a false, perfidious wretch, and proved un- 
faithful — married somebody else — and poor Miss 
Ambler was heart-broken until she met Miss Benton 
and became absorbed in Fra Angelico and the evan- 
gelization of Italy. How, I suppose, she is the hap- 
piest woman in Florence.” 

Mrs. Colton sighed and looked pensive, and I grew 
more alarmed than ever. I feared that the satirical 
mood had left her, and she was about to become sen- 
timental, and perhaps, worse yet, confidential. A 
bachelor with a fair income is naturally suspicious 
when a widow sighs as Mrs. Colton sighed, when a 
widow looks at him as Mrs. Colton looked at me. 

“ I must go,” said I, rising. It was abrupt, but I 
could not help it. 

“You will come again soon and see me?” mur- 
mured Mrs. Colton. “ We will talk over old times.” 

But I did not go so soon again after all. 

That evening, in the hotel reading-room, I met an 
old friend, John Hull, of Rochester. I had not seen 
him for several years, and I was astonished to find 
that, although he looked hale and hearty, he had 
grown stout, gray, and decidedly middle-aged. 

“ Upon my word, I am glad to see you, Dick !” he 
cried, in tones that made plain the fact that lie had 
not come to Italy for any lung - affection, and that 


104 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


caused a surly old Englishman to glare at him over 
the top of the Times . After we had shaken hands, 
I proposed that we should go to Doney’s for a chat 
and a glass of something; so to Doney’s we went, 
and talked comfortably while we sipped our “ Amer- 
ican tea” (Florentine idiom, meaning grog) and 
smoked our cigars. Hull told me all about his busi- 
ness affairs, and, indeed, rather bored me with his 
stories of past financial successes and his schemes for 
the future. “ But I found I was working too hard,” 
he said at last, “ and then I met with a bereavement 
— lost my wife” — the smile on his face went out 
suddenly as he spoke — “and I came to Europe to 
recuperate.” 

“ I did not hear of Mrs. Hull’s death,” said I. 

“It was very sudden — pneumonia,” he returned, 
jerkily; and then we were both silent for a few 
minutes. 

“You have children, haven’t yon ?” I asked. 

His face brightened again: “I have two little 
girls. They are at a small, home-sort of boarding- 
school in Poughkeepsie. I got a letter from Jennie 
this morning.” He began fumbling in his pockets. 
“ She writes a capital letter, and I think when she 
grows up she will handle a pen uncommonly well — 
has the knack, you know. Now, Nellie hasn’t. Let- 
ter-writing to her is perfunctory, a duty, but, bless 
your soul, she can beat Jennie at needle- work. She 
is making some handkerchiefs for me now, hemming 
them or embroidering them. Dear me ! I am sorry 
I haven’t Jennie’s letter in my pocket. It would 
surprise you.” 

I did not say how devoutly thankful I was not to 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


105 


(•prised. For a bachelor a child’s letter does 
possess that charm which it does for fond par- 

•jy 4 This grog is uncommonly good,” said Hull, sud- 
^ily changing the subject. “ Waiter, two more 
)gs. What a blessing it is that everybody speaks 
iglish ! When I first made up my mind to come 
/road, it worried me a little to think that I couldn’t 
^>eak the languages ; hut everybody has English on 
/lie tip of his tongue. I suppose it is because the 
English and Americans are such travellers : there 
are lots of them living here, I am told. I have a 
letter of introduction to a certain Mrs. Eugene Col- 
ton, and one of my friends in Paris told me that 
through her I should make the acquaintance of ev- 
erybody in Florence worth knowing. She is a wid- 
ow — a charming one, of course — and I will introduce 
you to her, Dick, if she proves to be all that I have 
been told she is.” 

“ Thanks. I have known her twenty years,” I re- 
turned. “ She is quite an elegant person — has a pret- 
ty little villa, and servants in livery. I believe she 
has a young daughter, too, but she is not on show 
yet.” 

“You don’t like her much?” said Hull, looking at 
ine shrewdly. 

“ She is a very charming woman,” I replied, “ and 
I advise you to present your letter of introduction at 
once. I’ll tell her what a good thing you made out 
of mining stock, and she and all the other charming 
widows will smile their sweetest upon you.” 

Hull shook his head in a deprecatory way. “I 
don’t feel like playing the gallant,” said he. 


106 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


“ Perhaps not,” I rejoined ; “ but surely yover 
marry again ? There are your children to be c\ds, 
ered. You can’t keep them in a board ing-schooiat 
ever.” 

“ No, of course not,” said Hull ; “ but I don’t 
to ask a woman to marry me merely to take card 
my children.” 

“ You may fall in love,” I suggested, and at t 
he positively reddened a little. 

“ So may you,” he retorted. 

The next afternoon I went to call upon Miss Bentor 
After a drive of a few minutes through dark, nar- 
row streets, the carriage halted before a gloomy man- 
sion that I suppose had in former times been the 
home of a Florentine merchant prince. The porter’s 
wife came out of her den, and, following her direc- 
tions, I plodded up three long, dreary flights of stairs, 
and rang a bell, over which were tacked two neat 
cards, one Miss Benton’s, the other Miss Ambler’s. A 
rather handsome Italian girl ushered me at once into 
a cosey parlor, where sat a tall, thin woman, dressed 
with severe simplicity, her gray hair drawn smoothly 
back from a stern face, and spectacles half hiding a 
pair of soft blue eyes. Any one who judged Ellen 
Benton without taking into consideration those ten- 
der, sympathetic eyes made a great blunder. 

She rose and greeted me warmly, gave me an arm- 
chair by the fire, and made me feel at once very much 
at home. Naturally, the talk turned upon my sister, 
and I told everything I could think of about her 
and her husband and babies, went into raptures over 
Florence, indulged in the usual philippic against the 
Italian winter, and then the conversation languished. 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


107 


miration prompted me to ask if a sketch tacked 

■4on the wall was Miss Benton’s handiwork. 

' “ No,” she replied ; “ that was done by my friend 
Miss Ambler, of whom I doubt if you have heard. 
Your sister never told you about her, did she?” 

“ My sister never tells me about anybody,” said I. 

“ Miss Ambler belongs to the Amblers of Balti- 
more — a good old family, but almost extinct now — 
so that she, like myself, is a lone woman. For sever- 
al years past we have made our home together here 
in Florence — in this very apartment, in fact. It is a 
great comfort to find such a friend as I have in Mary 
Ambler.” 

“ Ob, it must be,” said I; “not so remarkable, per- 
haps, to find the friend as to keep her. Most part- 
nerships of this sort go to pieces in a few months. 
Floyd Van Zandt and I once set up bachelor hall 
together ; but we disagreed about a matter of ci- 
gars, and have been very cool to each other ever 
since.” 

“ There is no danger of that happening with Mary 
and me,” said Miss Benton, with a twinkle in her eye. 
“ A good many of our acquaintances here prophesied 
that we should soon get tired of the partnership and 
separate, but we have not yet, and I don’t believe we 
ever shall. Bah ! it is impossible !” cried Miss Ben- 
ton, in fierce scorn. 

“ Unless some bachelor or widower comes along and 
breaks in upon your peaceful realm,” I retorted. I 
was not in the least afraid of Miss Benton. She was 
the same stern, soft-hearted, hard-headed, romantic 
spinster who in days gone by had petted my sister 
and winked at my flirtations with the pretty girls in 


108 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


tlie senior class. At my jocose remark^ yover 
her lips with a sort of good-humored contemp cids, 

“ The danger of such invasions is past so far at 
am concerned,” said she, “and Miss Ambler, although 
she is younger than I, has had a bit of experience 
which — well, you understand.” 

I nodded like a mandarin. 

“ Now, I never had such an experience myself,” 
Miss Benton continued, “but I notice that it rarely 
afflicts the same person twice — at least, not a person 
like Miss Ambler. It is like the scarlet-fever.” 

“ But some people have the scarlet-fever twice,” 
said I. 

“ Miss Ambler won’t,” she retorted, rather fiercely. 
“ Perhaps,” she added, “ I ought not to allow such a 
gay, dangerous bachelor as you are to meet Miss Am- 
bler. It might endanger her peace of mind. I sup- 
pose that was what you meant.” 

I hastened to assure her that I was not so vain ; 
but I was made to endure a most unmerciful teasing. 
She raked up all my past love-affairs, recalled little 
Romeoesque episodes, and poked so much fun at me 
that I was very grateful when the door opened, and 
a lady, who I knew must be Miss Ambler, entered. 
She had a plump, comfortable sort of figure, and a 
clear complexion, and it was plain that she cared 
more about dress than did her aesthetic soul-sister. 
She vanished into the bedroom for a moment, and 
came back without her hat and jacket, and sat down 
beside me. The conversation received a fresh im- 
petus, and I heard all about the Scotch clergyman, 
the mission-schools, the Italian Bible and Tract So- 
ciety, and was very much entertained. By-and-by 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


109 


the demure Italian girl came in with the usual tea, 
and as she left the room she shot a wicked, laughing 
glance at me out of her big dark eyes. 

“That is Assunta,” said Miss Ambler. “We found 
her in the depths of poverty and degradation, and we 
rescued her. We are trying to make a house-maid of 
her, but she is not very efficient yet. Ah, the trou- 
ble I have had teaching her to read ! She will nev- 
er learn to write, I fear.” 

“ Or to tell the truth,” added Miss Benton, grim- 
ly. “ However, she is vastly improved.” 

Assunta now put her head in at the door and rat- 
tled off something which I did not understand, but 
which had the effect of taking Miss Benton out of 
the room. 

“ I am making a very long call,” I began, when I 
found myself alone with Miss Ambler, “ but it is so 
pleasant to meet with an old friend again. I know 
no one here except yourselves and a certain Mrs. Eu- 
gene Colton.” 

“ Ah, you know Mrs. Colton ?” said Miss Ambler, 
lifting her eyebrows a little. “ But of course you 
do : everybody knows Mrs. Colton. Is she a very 
great friend of yours ?” added Miss Ambler, giving 
me a quick glance. 

“Merely an acquaintance, although I have known 
her a long time,” I replied. “But why do you ask 
me ?” 

Miss Ambler smiled, mischievously : “ I wondered 
whether you knew her nickname. It is unkind, per- 
haps, to repeat it, but she is always called the trap- 
per. You see, she wants to marry a title.” 

“ I hope she will trap her title, if that is what she 


110 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


wants,” I remarked. “ She ought to, I am sure, for 
she is a very handsome and agreeable woman.” 

“She hasn’t quite money enough,” said Miss Am- 
bler. “ She makes a show, but the Italians understand 
that perfectly. She could get her title easily enough 
if she only had another fifty thousand.” 

“And perhaps her daughter is an encumbrance,” 
said I. 

“ The daughter is well out of the way,” Miss Am- 
bler responded. “ She has put her in a convent to 
be educated, she says. The poor child will surely 
become a Romanist. Ah ! it is dreadful to see a 
woman neglect her child in that way ! I don’t care 
how handsome and agreeable Mrs. Colton may be — 
we liked her very much at first, Miss Benton and I 
— but then we found out about the child, and we 
thought it our duty to remonstrate with Mrs. Colton. 
It was not intrusive, for we knew her very well ; 
but she behaved badly; she spoke as no lady ever 
could when Miss Benton and I begged her to take 
poor little Edith out of that horrid French con- 
vent.” 

Tears stood in Miss Ambler’s eyes, and I felt sym- 
pathetic and indignant. 

“ If I were a mother, I could never put my only 
daughter in a boarding-school, let alone a dreary con- 
vent,” said I, warmly. To my great surprise, Miss 
Ambler burst out laughing. 

“ Oh, I beg your pardon,” she exclaimed, “ but 
you said that so oddly !” 

I caught sight of my mustache in the mirror op- 
posite, and I laughed too, for it was rather funny 
for me to be posing as a mother. Miss Benton en- 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


Ill 


tered at that moment, and in a few minutes I took 
my leave. 

I soon went again to call upon the soul-sisters, and 
they were kind enough to entertain a very hospitable 
feeling towards me, and endeavored to make my so- 
journ in Florence pleasant. One morning Miss Ben- 
ton and I had been to the Pitti Palace, and, as we 
came out, a carriage dashed by, containing Mrs. Col- 
ton and John Hull. 

“ She has an Englishman with her,” Miss Benton 
remarked. “ A baronet, probably.” 

“Not a bit of a baronet,” I rejoined. “ It is John 
Hull, of Rochester — a friend of mine.” 

“John Hull, of Rochester?” she repeated. 

“ Yes ; and a very good fellow, too. I must bring 
him to call upon yon some day.” 

“ I w T ouldn’t have him in the house,” cried Miss 
Benton. 

Now it was my turn to be amazed. “ What have 
you against him ?” I said. “ Do you know him ?” 

“ No, I don’t know him ; but Mary — well, she was 
once engaged to him. It was a long time ago, 
still, I am afraid she has a soft spot in her heart 
for him yet. However, lie is married. She told 
me — ” 

“ His wife is dead,” I said. 

“Worse yet!” cried Miss Benton, in great excite- 
ment. “Don’t let Mary even suspect he is in Flor- 
ence. Don’t tell him about her, or her about him. 
Don’t mention their names to each other.” Her thin 
face flushed and her voice trembled. “Oh, I sup- 
pose he will persuade Mary to marry him!” she 
added, in a sort of despair. Then she smiled at 


112 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


herself. “You think me an old fool,” she said, with 
her usual ferocity. 

“No, no,” I returned, in the most soothing tone I 
could muster. “ But you really ought not to trouble 
yourself about the matter, for even if Miss Ambler 
and Hull did meet, there could be no danger. Their 
romance is dead and buried. Why, Hull has a 
daughter ten or eleven years old.” 

“ Yes, it is nearly fifteen years since they have 
seen each other,” said Miss Benton ; “ but you don’t 
know Mary. She has often reproached herself, and 
declared that she behaved badly to him, and he went 
off and got married out of sheer pique. She has 
never forgotten him. She had plenty of good offers 
after breaking her engagement.” 

“ I don’t doubt it,” I remarked. I was not wicked 
enough to add that the spinster who had not refused 
several good offers did not exist. 

“And now that he is a widower with children, he 
wants to marry again, of course. Widowers always 
want to marry,” Miss Benton continued. “Mary is 
by no means old or ugly, and if he and she should 
meet — Richard Logan, promise me that you will not 
mention their names to each other.” She faced me 
with a solemn countenance, and I promised to re- 
spect her wishes. 

“ Of course yon think me an old fool,” she said ; 
“ but I don’t care.” 

For some distance we walked on in silence, Miss 
Benton grasping a catalogue of pictures as firmly 
as if it were poor John Hull’s neck. 

“ I suppose Mrs. Colton will tell him all about us,” 
she said, presently. “That woman is a viper. Np,” 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


113 


she added, hastily, recollecting, perhaps, a certain 
saying about “ charity to all,” “ I don’t mean to be 
unjust; but she treated me abominably, and a saint 
might forgive it, but I don’t believe a saint could 
forget. She circulated a caricature of Miss. Ambler 
and me all over Florence, but one day she showed 
it to young Shumway, and he put it into the fire, 
and told her she ought to be ashamed of herself. 
Now, a woman feels such things.” 

“ Ay, and so does a man,” I returned. 

“ I wonder if a man who had ever had the good 
sense to love Mary Ambler could admire Mrs. Col- 
ton,” said Miss Benton, pensivety. 

“Give Mrs. Colton her due,” I returned. “She 
is handsome and amusing, and I dare say Mr. Hull 
does admire her immensely. To be candid, so do 
I ; but I wouldn’t marry her.” 

“She wouldn’t have you,” said Miss Benton. 
“You are not rich enough. Now, Mr. Hull is. He 
has retired from business, and is ready and willing 
to set up an elegant establishment id New York or 
Paris, and Mrs. Colton will take him, now that Count 
Bellegarde has slipped through her fingers. That 
failure discouraged her dreadfully.” 

“Ah, but Hull has not retired from business,” I 
made haste to explain ; “ and he would not live any- 
where except in Bochester. He told me so last 
night.” 

“ You see him often, then ?” Miss Benton asked. 

“We are at the same hotel ; but don’t be alarmed: 
I will never mention Miss Ambler’s name to him if 
I can help it.” 

With this assurance I left Miss Benton at the door 
8 


114 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


of her gloomy mansion, and then, as it was still ear- 
ly, I jumped into a fiacre and drove off to Mrs. Col- 
ton’s. I found her and Hull drinking tea together, 
their chairs drawn close to the fire that for a won- 
der was blazing up bright, and roaring in a way that 
must have been quite alarming to a Florentine chim- 
ney. 

“It isn’t Wednesday,” I said, as I entered the rose- 
colored room, “ but I thought I would run the risk 
of finding you at home. I avail myself of the privi- 
lege of an old friend.” 

Mrs. Colton looked at me mournfully. “An old 
friend,” she repeated. “ An old friend who has left 
me and gone over to the soul-sisters. I have been 
telling Mr. Hull how those designing spinsters have 
drawn you into their net. It isn’t proper for you to 
run all over Florence first with one, then with the 
other, then, worst of all, with both of them. You 
are a sad Lothario.” 

I bowed and said nothing. A cup of tea was 
handed to me fhen, and I amused myself stirring 
about the lump of sugar and watching Hull. He 
was certainly conscious of the widow’s charms. His 
eyes glistened when she gave him sweet doses of 
flattery, and bestowed her softest glances upon him. 
Evidently she had heard all about the mining-stock, 
and it was very patent to a not unobservant bachelor 
that if Hull did not make love to her it would not 
be because he had failed to receive due encourage- 
ment. 

“ How is your daughter, Mrs. Colton ?” I asked, 
abruptly. 

She shot a quick, keen glance at me ; she under- 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


115 


stood that the soul-sisters had told me about the con- 
vent. 

“Edith is very well, thank you,” she replied. “I 
think I shall go and see her as soon as I get rid of 
my cold. I dare not run the risk of the Northern 
winter, and poor Edith is ill in the South ; so the 
child and I are separated. But she is happy in her 
school, and doesn’t miss me half so much as I miss 
her. I hope in a year or two I shall be able to spend 
the winters in Paris, and have Edith under my wing.” 

“Paris is frightfully expensive,” said I. 

“Yes, I know it,” she returned, with a little sigh. 
“ I could not have the comforts there that I can en- 
joy here in Florence. Italy is the place for a lim- 
ited income; but I must have my daughter with 
me, even if it does entail a little privation.” 

“Boarding-schools are no places for girls,” said 
Hull. “I wish my two daughters were here with 
me this very minute.” 

“They are better and happier where they are,” 
said Mrs. Colton. “ We parents spoil our children 
by our over-indulgence. If Edith wants a box of 
bon - bons, I have not the moral courage to refuse 
her, though I know perfectly well that they are bad 
for her digestion and her teeth.” 

“Yes, I am weak-minded too,” said Hull, in a dry 
tone that made me smile. And then these two ex- 
perienced people talked about the bringing up of 
children until half-past five struck, when, to my re- 
lief, Hull took his leave, and I followed his example. 
We preferred to walk back to the hotel, and for 
some distance we marched steadily forward in si- 
lence. Suddenly he turned to me, and said, “ By- 


116 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


the- way, this afternoon Mrs. Colton mentioned a cer- 
tain Miss Ambler. Do you happen to know who she 
is? I used to know a lady of that name.” 

“ I met her a fortnight ago,” I replied, mindful 
of my promise. “She is living with another lady 
named Benton, who used to be a school-teacher, and 
whom I have known a long time.” 

“ Well, what is Miss Ambler’s Christian name ?” 
Hull now asked. 

“Her Christian name!” I exclaimed. “How the 
deuce should I know her Christian name, John ?” 

“Oh, you might have heard it,” said he, mildly. 
“ Did you ever notice her eyes ?” he added, with an 
effort at airy nonchalance. “Are they large and 
brown? and is her hair dark? The Miss Ambler I 
used to know was a very pretty brunette.” 

“ An old sweetheart, eh ?” said I. 

He laughed: “Well, yes. I suppose I might as 
well confess it. I came very near marrying her, 
too. She was seventeen or so, and one of the pretti- 
est girls I ever saw. But she and I had a quarrel — 
you know how it is, Dick — and I dare say she mar- 
ried years ago, just as I did. I should like to see 
her again. A man of my age is apt to think of his 
first love.” 

“First love!” I repeated, somewhat scornfully. 
“ You must have been at least thirty when you were 
engaged to her.” 

“My first love just the same,” he rejoined, firmly. 
“How, Dick, you find out whether the Miss Ambler 
you know is named Mary, and comes from Balti- 
more. Pshaw ! it can’t be the same one. She mar- 
ried Frank Hay don, I am confident.” 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


117 


“ There is no doubt of it,” I said. 

“But you find out about her, will you?” he added. 

What could I say to this persistent man? I con- 
sented to find out about her, ruefully wondering if, 
between Hull and Miss Benton, I should not get 
myself into a pretty scrape. I confess I avoided 
them both ; but meet we did, in spite of my efforts, 
and I was plied with questions, one asking eagerly if 
I knew Miss Ambler’s Christian name, the other if 
Mr. Hull had any idea that Mary was in Florence. 
At last, after ten days of evasions and falsehoods, I 
fled in despair to Borne. 


PART II. 

I stayed in Borne only a fortnight. Sight-seeing 
alone is dreary work, and, moreover, I was in mortal 
terror of the fever. The first headache sent me fly- 
ing back to Florence as fast as an express - train 
could take me. Perhaps I was curious to find out 
whether Miss Benton had been successful in keeping 
the two lovers apart ; but, be that as it may, I cer- 
tainly was glad to get back to Florence, and the 
very next day after my arrival I went to call upon 
the soul-sisters. 

I found only Miss Ambler at home, and as she 
came forward to greet me it struck me for the first 
time that not merely must she have been a very 
pretty girl, but that she was still a pretty woman. 
Her dark hair was thick, and unstreaked with gray, 
her eyes bright, and her complexion fresh and al- 
most youthful. To my eyes she was more attractive 
than the slim, graceful, languid Madam Colton. I 


118 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


stayed and chatted with her for almost an hour, but 
Miss Benton did not come in, and I had to leave 
without seeing her. I dined at the hotel that even- 
ing with Hull, and, to my great relief, he seemed to 
have forgotten Mary Ambler of Baltimore ; but the 
first time I met Miss Benton I found that she had 
by no means forgotten John Hull, of Rochester. 

“ So he is going to marry Mrs. Colton ?” she said, 
abruptly. 

“ It looks like it,” I replied. 

“ Everybody says so, at any rate,” said Miss Ben- 
ton, “ and it is certain he is always with her — in the 
Cascine, at the theatre, everywhere. I suppose he 
will put his little girls into a convent too. Mrs. Col- 
ton will cajole him so that he will think girls can’t 
be educated outside of a convent. She will have a 
great deal to answer for some day.” 

“ Suppose we prevent such a catastrophe,” I said, 
with malice prepense. “ Hull is romantic, as all 
stout widowers of forty-five are, and if he sees Mary 
Ambler, his own true love, he will surely ask her to 
forgive and forget the past, and go back to Roches- 
ter with him.” 

Miss Benton’s awful look quenched me. “ I can 
make Mary Ambler happier than a dozen fat senti- 
mental widowers could,” she said. “ Richard Lo- 
gan, if you dare break your promise I will — ” 

“ Well, what will you do, Miss Benton ?” 

“I will marry you myself,” she said, smiling grim- 
ly. “ N ow, be warned. But, jesting aside,” she con- 
tinued, more gravely, “ Mary is happy now, and hap- 
piness is rare in this world. Let us two spinsters en- 
joy it. There is no need of rekindling an old flame.” 


THE SOUL- SISTERS. 


119 


“ I won’t rekindle it,” I returned. “At the same 
time, I hope Hull will not marry Mrs. Colton. She 
would never be satisfied to settle down in Eoches- 
ter, and he will never live anywhere else, and there 
would be trouble before the honeymoon had paled.” 

“ Serve him right,” said Miss Benton, sternly. 

The next time I went to call upon the soul-sisters 
I took with me a cabinet photograph of Hull’s chil- 
dren. It was a pretty picture. The two blond 
heads were pressed lovingly Together, and four big 
eyes looked out demurely from under a mass of soft, 
fluffy hair. One mouth was serious, and the other 
curved in a smile that deepened a roguish dimple. 

“ What lovely children !” cried the soul-sisters, in 
a breath. *‘And whose are they?” asked Miss Am- 
bler, while Miss Benton looked at me reproachful- 
ly. She had divined whose children they were, the 
shrewd spinster. 

“ They are two little girls who are soon to be put 
in the Convent of the Sacred Heart,” I replied. 
“They have no mother.” 

“ The poor things !” said Miss Ambler. “ Haven’t 
they any aunts ?” 

“ Ho; nor grandmothers,” I said. 

“And is their father a Bomanist?” she asked, 
with increasing interest. 

“ He has always been more of a Presbyterian than 
anything else ; but he is to marry a lady, I hear, who 
leans towards the Church of Eome, and who doubt- 
less will have a strong influence over him.” 

“It is the man who is going to marry Mrs. Col- 
ton,” said Miss Ambler, suddenly. “ He is, I know, 
a widower with two children. They were talking 


120 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


about him the other day at Mrs. Wreaks’s, but I 
didn’t hear who he was. What is his name ?” 

As she asked this question, she looked me straight 
in the eyes. I hoped I did not blush. “John Rich- 
ardson, ” I replied; and it was quite true, as far as it 
went. 

“John Richardson,” she repeated, in a musing 
tone. 

Miss Benton pulled the bell-rope sharply, and As- 
sunta appeared on the scene at once. “ Assunta,” 
she said, in fluent but fierce Italian, “ why do you 
continually let this fire go out? I have told you re- 
peatedly to come in every now and then and see if 
it were burning properly, but you disobey me. I 
will not permit such negligence.” 

Assunta’s black eyes grew as big as moons, and 
she looked at each of us blankly. I suspect she had 
never before heard her mistress speak so sharply. 

Poor Miss Ambler was really alarmed. “ Why, 
Ellen,” she said, gently, “ the fire is not so very low.” 

But the fire and Assunta had to receive the abuse 
that a man’s dog or horse sometimes gets. I stole 
away, feeling rather ashamed, with the photograph 
in my pocket. John Richardson had naturally sug- 
gested John Richardson Hull to the tender-hearted 
spinster, and she would doubtless madden her soul- 
sister for a week to come by indulging in reveries 
and twilight reflections. I chuckled a little as I 
thought of poor Miss Benton’s anguish; but I felt 
rather frightened when I met that lady the next 
morning in Flor & Findel’s shop. 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she said, 
ignoring the presence of the English-speaking clerk. 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


121 


He, however, smiled discreetly and took himself off. 
“ Mary has done nothing but think of her old sweet- 
heart ever since you said John Richardson,” she 
added. 

I protested : “ Ought I to have lied outright when 
she asked me his name ?” 

“You ought to have evaded it in some way,” Miss 
Benton replied, forgetting her stern Scotch Presby- 
terianism for the nonce. “A clever man of the 
world like you making such a stupid, blundering an- 
swer! I am ashamed of yon! And, any way, you 
had no business to bring that photograph to the 
house. It has made me perfectly miserable to think 
of those two children being put into a convent and 
turned into nuns, and spending all their lives among 
priests and sisters. I tell you it is dreadful ! Such 
pretty children, too ! I should like to give Mr. John 
Richardson Hull a piece of my mind.” 

“ Well, here he comes, and you can do it at once,” 
I rejoined, as I saw Hull come across the street. He 
entered the shop, and I straightway introduced him 
to Miss Benton, who bow T ed to him with freezing 
dignity. 

We discussed the weather for a few moments, and 
then Hull exclaimed, hastily, “ Ah, you must excuse 
me, but there is Mrs. Colton, and she promised to go 
with me to-day to buy a birthday-present for my 
daughter Nellie. I am sure I don’t know what the 
child wants ; a trifling thing will do, I suppose. Miss 
Benton, delighted to have met you. Good-morning.” 
And he hastened out of the shop and joined Mrs. 
Colton, who had just walked by. 

“He seems like a very good man,” said Miss Ben- 


122 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


ton ; “but liow can he think of sending his children 
to a convent ? I suppose he is infatuated with that 
woman.” 

“ That woman ” looked very handsome in her trim 
English walking- suit, and she and Hull sauntered 
away, smiling at each other in the most amiable fash- 
ion, while Miss Benton and I watched them from the 
shop-window. 

“ Look at her bridle and simper,” said the spinster, 
scornfully. “And he is so happy, so bland, so gulli- 
ble ! What fools men are sometimes ! If it -were 
only the man in this case, I could view the affair 
with calm contempt; but when I think of the chil- 
dren — bah !” 

With this exclamation she left me abruptly, and 
marched away in the wake of Hull and his charmer. 
It began to be interesting. Would Miss Benton stick 
to her resolution and keep the former lovers apart ? 
or would she relent, rout Mrs. Colton, and save Hull 
from her wiles by sacrificing Mary Ambler ? I de- 
termined to stay in Florence and see the comedy 
played through. 

In the course of a few days I received an invita- 
tion from Mrs. Colton to dine with her, and I ac- 
cepted. I supposed, of course, that Hull would be 
there, but, to my surprise, I found that he was not 
among the guests — a polyglot collection of people, 
who chatted together in a confusion of French, Ital- 
ian, and English. After dinner Mrs. Colton led me 
into her boudoir, and made me sit down on a low 
couch beside her. 

“ How delightful it is to get away from those peo- 
ple for a few minutes !” she said, crossing her hands 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


123 


languidly in her lap. “I grow so tired of seeing 
them and listening to their inane chatter !” 

“ Then why do you invite them here ?” I asked, 
bluntly. 

She shrugged her shoulders as she replied, “I 
must have society ; I am not a hermit. And among 
my numerous acquaintances I have a few friends 
whom I prize very highly — you, for instance.” 

“Thanks,” I said; “and where does Mr. Hull 
come in ? — among the inane chatterers or the valued 
friends ?” 

She looked down at her hands in silence, and be- 
gan to turn a big ruby ring around slowly. Final- 
ly she smiled, and said, as though to herself, “ Poor 
Mr. Hull!” 

This nettled me a little. “I don’t see why you 
accy poor Mr. Hull,” I returned. “ To be sure, he has 
pead the misfortune to lose his wife, but that was over 
M year ago, and time will heal the wound. He is in 
tsuperb health, he has two beautiful children, he is 
rich enough, and I don’t see why he is to be pitied.” 

“Don’t you ?” she said, with an assumption of girl- 
ish roguishness that exasperated me. 

“Ho, I do not,” said I, bluntly, “unless you are 
really going to marry him, and then I do pity him — ” 
I saw her flush in a dangerous way, so I added in 
precisely the same tone as before — “ because in that 
case he will have a duel on his hands with all the 
men in Florence.” 

It was clumsy, it was coarse, but it served the 
purpose. Her angry flush faded away, and was re- 
placed by an amiable smile. “The same old flat- 
tering Dick,” said she. 


124 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


After that I soon invented an engagement to play- 
whist with some men at the club, and took myself 
off. As I neared the hotel I saw Hull walking along 
slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. 

“ Why were you not at Mrs. Colton’s ?” I said, 
when I came beside him. 

He looked at me with a comical smile. “ A man 
can’t dance attendance upon a woman forever with- 
out meaning anything,” he said. 

“ I thought you did mean something,” I returned. 

“ Well, I don’t know whether I do or not, Dick, 
and I had better keep away until I find out. A man 
of my age doesn’t go into this sort of thing with the 
impetuosity of youth. Who was at her house to- 
night 3” 

I told him about the dinner-party, and then we 
turned into the hotel and wrote letters until m 
night. 

The next morning, as I was crossing the Ponte 
Vecchio with Miss Benton, I saw Hull and Mrs. Col- 
ton in one of the little shops, looking at some jewel- 
lery. Us they did not notice, so absorbed were they 
in the necklaces and bracelets that a crafty Floren- 
tine was baiting them with. When we had passed, I 
said, half to myself, “That looks dangerous.” 

“ Oh, he will marry her,” said Miss Benton. After 
this interchange of opinions we walked on in silence 
towards our destination — a certain little shop where 
fine mosaics were to be bought. It was a sort of 
museum, and was divided into two rooms by great 
pieces of really beautiful tapestry. In front were 
statuettes, china, furniture, old coins, and some pict- 
ures attributed to various dead - and - gone masters. 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


125 


The shop proper was in the back, and Miss Eenton 
and I went in there at once and began to look at the 
mosaics. Soon we heard voices that were very fa- 
miliar. 

“ Here we can rest a while,” said Mrs. Colton. 
“ It is positively warm to-day in the sunshine. Buon’ 
giorno, Signor Bianchi,” she continued to the proprie- 
tor of the shop, in rather lame Italian. “ We are not 
shopping to-day ; only dropped in to rest and to look 
at your pretty things. Why, w T e have the place all 
to ourselves, for a wonder !” 

But Hull did buy something or other: I suppose 
he felt that he ought to. His voice was so low and 
deep that we could not understand what he said, but 
Mrs. Colton’s accents pierced the tapestry sharply. 
She talked at first about a picture on sale — a Wou- 
accenans it declared itself — and then, in response 
petMiat I supposed was Hull’s question, she laughed, 
Mid said, “All! she is a dear, good soul, Mr. Hull, 
p;ut utterly devoid of that plain common-sense which 
I know you admire so much in a woman. She looks 
severe and rigid, and I believe she is intensely relig- 
ious — quite a bigot, in fact — but, in spite of all that, 
she is the most romantic and foolish of old maids. 
You ought to see her with Miss Ambler. It is for- 
ever, ‘Take care, dear,’ and, ‘Don’t forget your over- 
shoes, love ;’ and once Miss Benton went to her room 
and cried her eyes out because Miss Ambler spoke 
angrily to her. It is very touching, such affection, 
but a wicked world will smile.” 

; Then came a low murmur through the tapestry, 
and we knew that Hull had the floor. I looked at 
Miss Benton, who sat beside me at the little table 


126 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


whereon a heap of mosaic jewellery was strewed, and 
I saw that an angry flush was on her cheeks, and a 
hard, determined look in her blue eyes. 

“ Shall we go ?” I said. 

She shook her head, and was about to speak, when 
a peal of laughter burst upon our ears. Mrs. Colton 
was vastly amused at something, and laughed heart- 
ily, but Hull did not join in her merriment, or, at 
any rate, he did not indulge himself in his customary 
Homeric ha-ha. 

“Ah, that is the drollest idea !” gasped Mrs. Colton 
at last. “ I have laughed until the tears are in my 
eyes. What would dear old Dick say if he had 
heard you ?” 

Now my face grew hot, and Miss Benton glanced 
at me with a smile of grim gratification. 

“No, no; don’t be alarmed,” continued Mrs. 
ton. “ No hawk will ever invade that dovecote ; / 
vile creature with a beard and a big voice will eve* 
alarm those tender creatures. Neither Dick nor any 
other man could, by masculine wiles and artifices, 
separate those loving hearts. It makes me laugh to 
think of the soul-sisters with a sweetheart. He would 
have to turn polygamist, and carry them both to the 
poetic retreat of Salt Lake City.” 

She laughed again, and, still laughing, left the shop. 
We heard the door close on her and her escort, and 
we looked at each other solemnly. 

“Didn’t I tell you she was a viper?” said Miss 
Benton, in an odd, dry tone. 

Luckily the little bric-a-brac den was one of the 
few places where English was not spoken, and conse- 
quently neither Signor Bianchi nor his polite clerk 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


121 


had understood a word of the conversation we had 
partially overheard. 

“ Come, Mr. Logan, let us go,” said Miss Benton, 
abruptly; and, after paying for the lace-pin I had 
chosen, I followed her out to the street. We walked 
on rapidly in utter silence for some distance, but 
Miss Benton finally said, “ Do you know I hate that 
woman ? That is,” she made haste to add, “ I should 
hate her if I allowed myself to hate any one.” 

“ I’ll hate her for both of us,” I said. “ Confound 
her condescension ! Why, her father kept a corner 
grocery in Dover when my grandfather was in 
charge of St. Luke’s there. I am not a snob, I hope; 
but when Julia Colton puts on such airs it exasper- 
ates me. What a tongue she has !” 

“ Bichard,” said Miss Benton, in her most solemn 
accents, “ I fear you will think me prompted by a 
petty and revengeful spirit, but I want you to bring 
Mr. Hull to call on us to - morrow evening. I will 
prepare Mary to meet him. It will be a great sac- 
rifice, but I think this is a matter that must be dealt 
with severely.” 

After that we went the rest of the way without 
any more words, I reflecting that verily awful is a 
woman who has heard herself ridiculed. 

When I returned to the hotel, I w r ent straight up 
to Hull’s room, where I found him writing let- 
ters. 

“ So you have decided to marry Mrs. Colton ?” said 
I, dropping into an arm-chair. “ I saw you with her 
this morning, and, after what you said last night, I 
came to the conclusion that you had made up your 
mind to meet your fate like a man.” 


128 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


He frowned, and fingered his pen-holder nervously. 
“ Don’t draw your conclusions so rapidly,” he said. 
“The fact is, I met Mrs. Colton at Maquay & 
Hooker’s, and she — well, she sort of carried me off. 
We went from Dan to Beerslieba.” 

He did not look at me, but an expression of droll 
resignation drifted over his face. 

“Meanwhile, I dare say, you have forgotten all 
about Mary Ambler, of Baltimore,” I remarked, in 
tones as nonchalant as I could make them. 

He glanced up quickly, and dropped the pen-hold- 
er. “Ho, I haven’t,” he exclaimed. 

“Well, she is here in Florence, living with Miss 
Benton. I dare say Mrs. Colton has told you about 
the soul-sisters, and made a very piquant and amus- 
ing story out of them. But the fact is, they are 
charming women, only Mrs. Colton has a grudge 
against them.” 

“ Yes, I thought so myself,” said Hull. “ She was 
talking about them this morning, and I discovered a 
little venom. But I can’t imagine Mary Ambler 
one of the soul-sisters.” 

“You can’t?” I exclaimed. “Perhaps you can’t 
imagine Mrs. Colton a trapper; but that is what 
everybody calls her, because she is trying to trap a 
title, or wealth. I would rather be called a soul-sis- 
ter than a trapper, by George !” 

Hull looked at me with wonder. “ Dick, I have 
not seen you so excited in ten years,” he said. “ You 
take a great interest in these two ladies.” 

“ Yes, I do,” I replied. “ They are good women ; 
and if one of them had a child she would not shut 
it up in a convent a hundred miles away.” 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


129 


“Who has shut up a child in a convent T Hull 
asked, beginning to laugh. 

“Madam Colton. Oh, you needn't shake your 
head ; I dare say she told you it was a small family 
boarding-school; but ask Mrs. Fairfax: she has two 
daughters in the same convent. You had better send 
Jennie and Kellie there.” 

“ Good God ! no !” cried Hull, fervently. “ A con- 
vent is well enough for Catholics— although I don’t 
see how a mother could send her children away from 
her — but it is no place for my daughters. . Kow, if I 
had been born a Romanist instead of a Presbyteri- 
an — ” 

“You might be a cardinal instead of mayor of 
Rochester,” I said, beginning to laugh too. “How- 
ever, to return to Mary Ambler : do you want to see 
months i»s, or don’t you ?” 
her liuslo,” he said, curtly. 

still tlvery well, then ; to-morrow evening we will call 
an/?ere. Miss Benton sends you the invitation.” 

“Does she look — old?” Hull asked, hesitatingly. 
“ Is she — gray ? Why didn’t she get married ?” 

“ She doesn’t look old, and she is not gray,” I re- 
plied ; “ but you ought to know why she has never 
married. I suppose women don’t get over their un- 
happy love-affairs as easily as men do.” 

Ilis face flushed. “But she jilted me,” he said. 
“ That is, she broke the engagement. I suppose 
I didn’t behave right though,” he added, though t- 
fnlly. 

“Oh, she has probably forgiven you and forgotten 
you by this time. She is certainly a happy woman, 
if I ever knew one,” I said. 

9 


130 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


I could not let him flatter himself that she had 
worn the willow for him all these years. 

The next evening we went to call on the soul-sis- 
ters, whom we found in the little parlor, Miss Benton 
armed with a ponderous volume, and Miss Ambler, 
as usual, with her needle-work. Hull was much em- 
barrassed. He stammered out something about being 
delighted to meet an old friend, and then subsided ; 
and while Miss Benton and I discussed the weather, 
he looked covertly at his first love. She would not 
have been a woman if she had not decked herself 
out a little for the occasion. She had donned a soft, 
dark-red silk dress, and about her neck and arms was 
creamy lace. The excitement of the meeting had 
given her an unwonted color, and her brown eyes 
shone like stars. 

Hull finally found his tongue, and began. 
and while he and Miss Ambler were convert, 
the most elegant fashion about the beauties of A 
ence, Miss Benton rose, murmured “ Excuse me, 
and left the room. I followed her without cere- 
mony. In the dark, narrow corridor she covered 
her face with her hands and burst into tears. “ Oh, 
Dick,” she cried — never before had she called me 
Dick — “oh, Dick, what shall I do without her?” 

I comforted her as best I could, led her into the 
little dining-room, and then left her, thinking that 
she could probably regain her self-possession better 
without my clumsy assistance. I did not, however, 
dare to return to the parlor, so I prowled about the 
dark corridor, and finally stumbled into a little box 
which proved to be the kitchen. Assunta was there 
— the Assunta who had been converted — but, alas! 


THE SOUL -SISTERS. 


131 


as I entered, a natty little soldier tried hard to dis- 
appear in a pantry not big enough to hold the most 
diminutive of men. I shook my finger at Assnnta, 
but the force of this mute reproach was broken by a 
smile that I could not repress. Again I prowled 
about the dark corridor, but at last entered the par- 
lor. Hull’s chair was drawn up close to Miss Am- 
bler’s, and he undoubtedly dropped her hand when I 
appeared. I knew that he hated me, but what could 
I do ? Presently Miss Benton returned, grimmer 
than ever, and in a half-hour Hull and I took our 
leave. When we reached the walk lie shook my 
hand with effusion. 

“Dick,” said he, “why didn’t you take me there 
before ?” 

So the comedy ended. In the course of six 
months Mary Ambler went back to Rochester with 
her husband. Mrs. Colton is still in Florence, and 
still the trapper. The lonely soul-sister is there too, 
and is unwearied in her efforts to convert Italy. 
And Assunta has run off with the soldier. 


ANNINA. 


Pastok Cjrespi was a Waldensian clergyman 
whose acquaintance I made at a prayer-meeting in 
Venice. There are prayer -meetings in Venice, and 
the Italians relate their experiences and sing hymns 
with all the fervor of enthusiastic Methodists. My 
friend Miss Leslie called for me one evening, and I 
accompanied her because I thought it rather novel 
to glide to a prayer - meeting in a gondola. We 
went some distance, twisting through narrow canals, 
turning innumerable corners, shooting a score of 
bridges, while the soft moonlight beamed as bright- 
ly as it did on the night when Jessica escaped from 
Shylock’s house. We halted at last before a great, 
grim palace, and a tall man hastened forward to 
help us up the slippery steps. This was Pastor 
Crespi, a singularly handsome man, with a silky 
beard and mustache covering the lower part of his 
face. He led the way up a wide marble staircase to 
a large room, where thirty or forty men and women 
were assembled. Some were devout souls ; some, 
like me, had been brought by a friend; and a few 
were there out of sheer curiosity. One peasant en- 
tered, looked about him with a puzzled air, and 
asked what was going on. The reply made him 
cross himself and hasten away, shaking the unholy 
dust from his feet. 

The room had been, in days gone by, a banquet- 


ANNINA. 


1 33 


hall, and the ceiling showed rosy nymphs and bac- 
chantes, now very dingy and badly defaced. As an 
offset to these pagan pictures, one side of the hall 
was covered with Scripture texts, and where a Cath- 
olic would have looked to find a basin of holy water 
was a table full of tracts. In a corner stood a par- 
lor organ, a young lady seated on the stool before it, 
intently studying a hymn-book. Thither Pastor 
Crespi led us, and introduced us to his niece, Signo- 
rina Annina Crespi. She was not more than seven- 
teen — a pretty, slim, dark -haired slip of a girl, who 
looked very demure, but her black eyes were bub- 
bling over with life and fun. She had in her hands 
a copy of Sankey’s hymns, an Italian version. The 
prayer-meeting began with “Hold the Fort,” Signo- 
rina Annina playing the organ and joining in the 
singing. Overhead, the nymphs still smiled sweetly, 
and the bacchantes never dropped their wreaths; 
but two or three gondoliers went out of the hall, 
knocking a few benches over to show their disap- 
proval. Pastor Crespi made a fervid address; a 
white-headed man in the audience rose, and de- 
scribed his conversion ; and finally there came an 
exhortation from a young man, who appeared to be 
not more than twenty. His eloquence was tremen- 
dous. Signorina Annina’s great eyes dilated, and 
Miss Leslie cried, but the crowd went crazy. Every- 
body wanted to speak at once when the young man 
sat down, and the air was rent with passionate voices 
that Pastor Crespi tried in vain to quell. When 
order was restored we went home ; but we had first 
been invited by the clergyman to dine with him and 
his niece on the following evening. 


134 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


Thus began my acquaintance with the Crespis, and 
that winter I boarded with them in Florence, whith- 
er the pastor had been sent to take charge of a Prot- 
estant chapel. He had a charming wife, but no chil- 
dren, and Annina passed the winter with them in 
order that she might study music. Her home was 
in Turin, and I asked her, one day, at the dinner- 
table, if there were no good music teachers there. 

She smiled significantly, and her uncle shook his 
finger at her. “ Yes, there are music-teachers there,” 
he said, “ and there is also a young man there, and he 
distracts Annina’s mind; so she must stay here in 
Florence, if she will learn anything.” 

Annina very soon told me that she was engaged to 
be married, and in a week I knew all about Allesio 
Ghiandaja. I heard of his blue eyes, his curly hair, 
his beautiful white hands, and his sweet tenor voice. 
Annina showed me his portrait, which she wore in a 
locket, and I pleased her by saying that he must be 
very handsome. 

“ An Apollo !” she exclaimed. 

She wrote many letters to him, and received many 
in return, and as a favor she would occasionally show 
me a line or two. We became excellent friends, de- 
spite the disparity of our ages, and I often took her 
with me to walk, or to visit the galleries. She 
talked continually about her Allesio ; but she spoke 
in Italian, so it was good practice for me in that lan- 
guage. He was a neighbor’s son, and she had known 
him from babyhood. 

“ But we did not love,” she said, “ until one sum- 
mer when his family and mine went to Switzerland 
together. Then we found out.” 




ANNINA. 


135 


“ Did he tell you ?” I asked. 

She looked much scandalized. “ He told my 
mother,” she answered, u and my mother told me ; 
but I knew it before,” she added, naively. “ There 
is much in a glance.” 

The rogue shot a demure sidelong look at me as 
she said this, and gave an ecstatic little skip. We 
were walking in the cascine, and the officers bestowed 
bold stares of admiration on Annina. She was very 
pretty, and by no means unconscious of it ; but she 
talked of her beauty in the same frank way that she 
did of her love affair. 

“ Were you ever alone with Allesio — I mean after 
you became engaged ?” I asked' wondering whether 
old customs still held sway. 

“ Ho, no !” she cried. “ That my mother would 
never allow.” 

I felt her hand tighten on my arm, and she sud- 
denly became silent. She did not even grow gay at 
the sight of Mr. Livingstone driving his sixteen or 
eighteen horses. At dinner she spoke hardly a word, 
and her uncle rallied her on her melancholy, her un- 
wonted silence. “ Ho letter from Allesio?” he said ; 
for when no letter came, Annina usually wept copi- 
ously. 

“ Oh, she had a ream of paper this morning,” his 
wife answered, a trifle impatiently. She was a plain 
matter-of-fact woman, and she thought Annina a 
silly, romantic girl, whose enthusiasm should be 
crushed. She told me privately that she had a very 
poor opinion of Allesio Ghiandaja. 

“ My brother-in-law would do better to arrange a 
marriage for Annina with his partner Signor Benel- 


136 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


li,” she said. “ He is a prudent, middle-aged man, 
and would make an excellent husband.” 

“ But if she loves Allesio ?” I asked ; for although 
I was forty-seven, I was sentimental. 

Signora Crespi shrugged her handsome shoul- 
ders. “ Annina’s love doesn’t count for much,” she 
replied. “ She would love a broomstick.” 

I did not agree with her. Annina was a child of 
an ardent, passionate temperament. She could love, 
and she loved Allesio. 

Late that night she came to my bedroom, dressed 
in a flowing white wrapper and a pair of scarlet 
slippers, her long black hair floating about her shoul- 
ders. If she had sung the mad-song from Lucia I 
should not have been particularly surprised ; but I 
was surprised, not to say horrified, when she flung 
herself on her knees before me and burst out crying. 
I finally succeeded in comforting her, and she raised 
her dishevelled head. “ Oh,” she moaned, “-you will 
think me so wicked ! I lied to you. I did see Al- 
lesio alone once. It was in the garden, and by moon- 
light. You will never tell? Promise me never to 
tell.” 

I promised solemnly. I had heard of lovers in a 
moonlight garden before, and I mentioned the fact 
now. 

“ But in America !” she exclaimed, as though any- 
thing were possible there. “ I was so frightened that 
evening!” She shuddered at the recollection. “I 
only stayed ten minutes, and I was trembling all the 
time; for if my mother had discovered us she — oh, 
I can’t think what she would have done !” 

I saw him at Christmas-time, this Signor Ghianda- 


ANNINA. 


137 


ja, for lie came with his future mother-in-law to pa} 7 
a visit. They arrived late one evening, and the 
mother entered first. Allesio had stopped below to 
pay the cabman, she said ; but in a minute he walked 
into the drawing-room, where we were all assembled, 
lie greeted Pastor Crespi and his wife, he was intro- 
duced to me, and finally he approached Annina with 
both hands out-stretched. She came forward slowly, 
her head hanging and a hot flush dyeing her cheeks ; 
she put her hands in his, and looked up at him shyly. 
ITe glanced over his shoulder at the mother, a plump, 
consequential little woman. “With your permission,” 
he said ; then without waiting for it, he stooped and 
kissed Annina. For a moment she stood bewildered. 
Her mother began to laugh, and Annina covered her 
face with her hands and ran away, while Allesio 
twirled his mustache and looked very handsome. I 
admire audacity in a man, and I admired him, al- 
though there was a gleam in his eyes that made me 
distrust him. He divined that I was simpatica , and 
during his visit he poured out his heart to me, as An- 
nina had poured out hers. I took these lovers under 
my wing: I carried them off on walks and drives, 
never neglecting an opportunity to turn my back on 
them, and acting deaf and blind to their whispers 
and glances. In return, these lovers declared an un- 
dying affection for me. 

“ You must come and see us when we are mar- 
ried,” Allesio said. “ There shall be a room apart 
for you; and you must stay weeks — a whole win- 
ter. Annina mice and I will try to prove that we 
are not ungrateful. We shall never forget you, eh, 
Annina V' 


138 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


She shook her head, and slipped her hand in mine 
by way of reply. She never chattered in his hear- 
ing ; she became shy and silent in his presence, hard- 
ly daring to raise her eyes ; but when she did raise 
them, it was to bestow an eloquent glance on her lov- 
er. At table she sat beside him, and she blushed 
when he filled her wineglass, blushed again when he 
passed her the bread. Alone with me, however, she 
rattled away as though to make up for lost time. 

Once I asked her who Signor Benelli was, and she 
looked at me in surprise. 

“ Papa’s partner,” she replied. 

“ Do you like him, Annina?” 

“ Cosi, cosi. He is not young ; he is fat, he is bald, 
but he is very amiable.” 

Clearly the thought of him as a suitor had nev- 
er entered her head, and I concluded that Signora 
Crespi had mentioned him only to contrast him with 
Allesio. I rather fell in love with the young man 
too. He was always the same, serene and smiling; 
perhaps a trifle arrogant, a trifle vain, but courteous 
and considerate. Annina’s mother I disliked, for 
she seemed a purse-proud dame, and I know that 
she told Signora Crespi that I ought to pay more 
for my board. Annina stood in awe of her, and her 
mother corrected her continually. It was, “ Sit up, 
Annina;” or, “Turn out your toes, Annina;” or, 
“Take care what you say, Annina.” I was glad 
when the tiresome woman went, but I missed Alle- 
sio’s bright smile and melodious voice, and Annina 
was sad-eyed for a week. She wrote more letters 
than ever, and received more; meanwhile the spring 
came up our way. Annina grew very religious : she 


ANNINA. 


139 


went to prayer-meetings with her uncle, she attended 
service three times on Sunday, and she visited the 
poor with her aunt. She became interested in a 
Protestant charity-school ; so she taught ragamuffins 
the Testament twice a week. The ragamuffins’ fa- 
thers and mothers, ignorant folk, and inflamed by 
the priests, Pastor Crespi declared, did not like to 
see their children taught, and they stoned the school- 
room one day. Annina came home a martyr, with 
her right wrist sprained ; so I wrote letters for her 
to Allesio. In them she described minutely all that 
she did and thought; nothing was too trivial, and I 
was sceptical enough to wonder, if any man lived in 
this workaday world who could read one of those 
ten-page letters through, every morning for a year. 
But a man in love performs extraordinary feats — 
there is no doubt of that. 

Suddenly Allesio’s letters stopped. The days went 
by, and it was almost a week since Annina had heard 
from him. She ate nothing, she refused to go out, 
and she locked herself in her room to weep and be 
miserable. Her uncle and aunt and I met in con- 
clave one evening, for we feared she would make 
herself ill. 

“ She was very feverish last night,” declared Pas- 
tor Crespi, who loved his niece, albeit he teased her 
unmercifully. 

“ She has eaten almost nothing for a week,” said 
his wife. 

“ She will die if hd deserts her,” added I, the sen- 
timental spinster. 

Then we three grown-up people smiled, but we 
all felt downright sorry for the poor girl. The 


140 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


following morning we called in a physician, who 
looked very grave. 

“She must be cajoled,” he said. “If she will not 
eat, and will not go out, and will only cry, she will 
surely get the fever. There is a good deal of fever 
this spring.” 

What were we to do? We cajoled, we com- 
manded, we implored ; but Annina refused to eat 
more than the least morsel of bread, or to drink any- 
thing but a little water. A girl might keep that up 
for two days — I mean a girl who was shamming — 
but Aniiina kept it up for nearly two weeks. At 
last a letter came from Allesio — a short letter, writ- 
ten in a wavering hand and dated at Paris. He wrote 
that he was ill and among strangers, but that he was 
slowly getting better. Annina was eager to go to 
him by the first train — she even tried to run away ; 
so we all watched her like cats until Allesio was well 
and back in Turin. As his letters grew regular, she 
regained her appetite, and was soon her joyous self 
once more. 

It was my plan to join Miss Leslie in Venice that 
spring, but before I left Florence I bought a wed- 
ding present for Annina, which I confided to Pastor 
Crespi’s care. She besought me to come to her wed- 
ding, which was to take place in September, and 
sobbed when I told her that in September I hoped 
to return to America. 

“You will be in Europe again?” she said, lifting 
her tearful face from my shoulder. 

“ Yes, I shall come to Europe again,” I replied. 

“ Then you must surely pay Allesio and me a long 
visit.” She put her mouth close to my ear. “I 


ANNINA. 


141 


shall be his wife,” she whispered. “ I shall be An- 
nina Gliiandaja.” 

“ The cab is here !” cried Pastor Crespi,and I tore 
myself free from Annina’s clinging arms. 

She wrote me several letters that summer. She 
seemed very happy, for she was travelling with her 
parents, and Allesio was with them for a while. In 
September, as I was speeding towards London, an 
elderly gentleman in the railway-carriage saw that I 
was reading Italian, and addressed me in that tongue, 
lie was very polite to me, in a benign way, and told 
me that he lived in Turin; so I asked him if he 
knew Giovanni Crespi, the silk merchant. 

“Yes, indeed I do,” he replied ; “I know him and 
his family very well. Are yon acquainted with 
them ?” 

“ With the signora and with Annina,” I said. 

“ Ah, Annina,” he repeated. “ I trotted her on 
my knee the other day, and now she is engaged to 
be married.” 

“ To Allesio Ghiandaja,” I added. 

“He is not worthy of her,” said the gentleman. 
“He drinks and he gambles. He went to Paris last 
spring, and returned half dead from the effects of 
dissipation. I hope Crespi will break off the match. 
Little Annina deserves a better husband.” 

Just before the steamer sailed from Liverpool I 
received a letter from Annina. She wrote in the 
gayest of spirits, although she told me that her mar- 
riage had been postponed. 

“ Dear Allesio must go to Lyons on business,” she 
wrote, “but he will soon return. I have made him 
a little travelling cap of blue silk, and you cannot 


142 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


think how well lie looks in it. He says that he will 
not dare wear it, for all the girls will fall in love 
with him, and he will surely be carried off by some- 
body. ‘ x\nd then,’ he adds, 4 wliat would you do, 
Annina mia V Ah, what should I do 

So she ran on for ten pages — Allesio, Allesio, al- 
ways Allesio. I answered as soon as I reached Hew 
York, and in the next letter I expected to hear of 
Annina’s marriage. As the weeks slipped by, I pict- 
ured the child on her wedding journey, too happy 
to write to me or to anybody else. The new year 
dawned, a clear, frosty day, the sky a dazzling blue, 
and the air full of powdery snow that blew off the 
house-tops. On such a day the sentimental traveller 
thinks of orange groves, of gray olive orchards, of 
the blue, tideless sea breaking on the Southern coast. 
It was on that day that I received my last letter 
from Annina; for although I had written to her 
several times, she had ignored me completely. Af- 
ter I read it, I brought out the letter that had 
reached me in Liverpool, and re-read that, hardly 
able to believe my own eyes. Some day I mean to 
go to Europe again, and I shall certainly look up 
Annina. I do not know what to think o.f her. The 
letter I received in Liverpool was written in August; 
the letter I received in Hew York was written four 
months later. The last letter I will translate as lit- 
erally as possible, keeping the original punctuation. 
Such a neat letter ! I wonder if she dashed it off at 
fever heat, or composed it carefully, biting the pen- 
holder with her white little teeth, and wrinkling her 
pretty brows ! If I could answer this, I should think 
that I understood the mystery. 


ANNINA. 


143 


“ Piazza d’Azeglio, Turin. 4 December. 

“Dear Miss Penniman, — Since last I wrote to 
you, so much lias happened that my poor brain is in 
quite a whirl. I am the happiest of women, the 
wife of the best of men and mistress of the pret- 
tiest house in all Turin. Just think, a whole house! 
Mamma, who still lives in an apartment, envies me, I 
know. It is a great thing to be married. Every- 
body treats me with respect, even mamma, but I 
must except my cook, Lisetta, who used to be my 
nurse and who still considers me a child and scolds 
me. I was married in white silk (hand embroid- 
ered !), and my husband gave 'me pearls to wear. 
He is so good, so kind ! I love him better every day, 
if that were possible. Dear uncle married us, and 
then went to Africa to rescue the heathen from 
their darkness. We all pray that he may succeed 
in his labors and that his health may hold good. 
Aunt Maria went with him. She wore her old gray 
silk at the wedding, and cried all the time. I nev- 
er saw her cry before, but I suppose she was think- 
ing of Africa. 

“After the wedding, the journey! My husband 
let me plan the route. I could not decide, so he 
helped me, and we bought guide-books and maps, 
and finally we made up our minds to travel through 
our own country. I had never been farther south 
than Florence. We visited Genoa and Pisa, and 
finally went to Koine, and spent two delicious weeks 
there, visiting those monuments that history has ren- 
dered so familiar. We both caught cold, and my 
husband was ill for two days and I nursed him, glad 
to show my devotion and yet grieved that he should 


144 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


suffer! He recovered entirely and we were able to 
proceed to Naples where we lingered in rapture be- 
fore that beautiful bay so often described in prose 
and poetry. Then on to Pompeii ! I thought of 
that terrible day when Vesuvius overwhelmed the 
smiling country and dealt death to men at their 
labor, women with their children in their arms. My 
husband bought me some Pompeiian ornaments for 
my drawing-room, but they were so ugly that I was 
not sorry when, on arriving home, I found that I 
had left them in the hotel at Naples. 

“At last the journey was over and we returned to 
Turin. We are living in a lovely house in the Piaz- 
za d’Azeglio. It is beautifully furnished and I have 
the old cook, Lisetta ; but I mean to send her 
away, for she still treats me like a child. In my 
own room I have put the lovely present you left for 
me, and I thank you for it a thousand times. You 
were so kind to me there in Florence. I often 
speak of you to my husband, who joins me in hop- 
ing that you will pay us a long visit very soon. ITe 
wants to do everything for me, and is the kindest, 
dearest of husbands* 

“ And now I must end my long letter with the 
hope that it finds you well and in good spirits. 
Think sometimes of me, and remember that I am 
the happiest woman in this great world that the 
good God has given to his unworthy servants. 

“ Annina Benelli. 

“ P. S. It is not Allcsio !” 


AT THE MAISON DOBBE. 

When I turned from the sunlight of the TJuai 
Massena into the shadow of the narrow Hue Pierre- 
noire, I saw Alida come out of her shop and plant 
herself in the middle of the street. There she stood, 
arms akimbo, gazing intently at the china, the pict- 
ures, the bronzes imprisoned behind the great panes 
of plate-glass. Soon she glanced up to where a new 
gilt sign informed the passer-by that here was the 
Maison Dobbe ; then she turned and saw me. She 
was a plump, dark-haired woman, with thick features 
and a swarthy skin. She was perhaps thirty- three 
or four years old, but she professed not to know her 
age. 

“ Miss Penniman !” she said, and a smile crept 
slowly to her face. “ Here again'. I am so glad to 
see you. I have just been arranging my windows. 
There is a Teniers,” pointing to a dull daub in a 
heavy frame. “ Cheap at three thousand francs,” 
she added, mechanically. 

Her shop did not look unlike many a fashionable 
drawing-room, full of cabinets, cupboards, bronzes, 
Dutch clocks, mirrors, and candlesticks. There were 
rugs on the floor, hangings and screens everywhere, 
and the walls were covered with small pictures in 
huge frames. Alida pushed forward an uncomfort- 
able spindle-legged chair, and begged me to be seated. 

10 


146 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


“ Adolphe,” she said, gentljq and a tall young fel- 
low in a sort of green livery stepped out of a dusky 
corner. She commanded him to fetcli a bottle of 
wine and some biscuit; then turning to me — “Are 
you already long here ?” she asked. 

“ I came yesterday,” I answered, “ and I want to 
stay all winter if I can find a cheap, decent board- 
ing-place. Mademoiselle Dobbe, I will teach yon a 
new idiom : I am dead broke.” 

Alida smiled: “I know that idiom since a long 
time. But why do you not take rooms and have 
meals sent in ? I live thus ; so do many.” She 
brushed invisible dust off her gown as she added, 
softly, “ Up - stairs there are two rooms — if you did 
not mind the old furniture — and we could arrange 
about the meals.” 

Mind the old furniture! I enjoj^ed the idea, and 
that very night slept in a great carved bedstead, and 
the next morning made my toilet with the aid of a 
superb Venetian mirror. Alida’s whole house was a 
shop, and she used her wares herself. Coffee and 
rolls were served in a dining-room where there were 
two sideboards and three tall clocks. The china 
w T as exquisite, and Adolphe watched over it tenderly, 
a wrinkle of anxiety puckering his forehead. He 
came in and washed the fragile cups and plates, but 
when the bell over the shop -door rang he dropped 
his dishcloth and hastened down-stairs. 

“Do yon call him a clerk, or an errand-boy, or a 
buttons?” I asked. 

“ All the three,” was the answer, given in English, 
as usual. She spoke several languages in the same 
nonchalant way that she did English, and with a sub- 


AT THE MAISON DOBBE. 


U1 

blime disregard of idioms. She succeeded in mak- 
ing herself understood, however. 

Besides Adolphe, she had a maid, who also filled a 
nondescript position. She took care of the rooms, 
she sewed, she ran errands, and she tended shop. I 
tended shop, too, after a while; it was as catching. as 
measles or mumps, and it was a very easy thing to 
do. When any one came in, I displayed the art 
treasures and chatted about the weather. The trifles 
had their prices marked ‘on them, but the larger arti- 
cles — the pictures, furniture, tapestry — were of fluct- 
uating value, and no one tried to sell them in Alida’s 
absence. A, would- be purchaser was politely asked 
to call again, and in most cases the second call was 
made. 

“It is not wise to be eager to 8011 ,” said Alida; 
and this was her policy. She was slow, unenthusias- 
tic, even when driving a close bargain. She acted 
as though it were a matter of supreme indifference 
to her whether she made a sale or not. At first I 
labored under the delusion that she was rather dull- 
pated, but I soon found out that there was a shrewd, 
calculating brain behind her sleepy eyes. How she 
came to engage in the bric-a-brac trade, how she ac- 
quired her knowledge of it, were mysteries I never 
could fathom. She bore an unblemished reputation, 
and was highly respected by the .people who knew 
her best. She went to the English church with 
great regularity; she observed Sunday; but I am 
sceptical enough to think that she saw some advan- 
tage in thus yielding to English prejudices. I should 
consider Alida one of the most sensible and saga- 
cious of women, were it not for the Edouard Braum 


148 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


episode. A photograph of Edouard Braun stood on 
her dressing-table, and letters came from him fre- 
quently. I ventured to banter her about him a lit- 
tle, and she bore it with the same stolid good-humor 
that she did any scoffing remarks upon her old pict- 
ures and furniture. I could not live there without 
getting some knowledge of the bric-a-brac trade, and 
I did not scruple to say what I thought about it. 
The works of the old masters excited my derision 
most, and above all the dingy daub that declared it- 
self a Teniers. 

“ It is a humbug, Alida,” I said, “ and yon know it.” 

She smiled sweetly: “My dear friend, I cannot , 
tell; but I know I shall sell it.” Whereupon she 
dropped it behind an old sofa. There was always 
some old master behind that sofa, and it was always 
discovered by some curiosity - seeker. I saw Alida 
put three or four pictures there at different times, 
and whenever one was discovered she always wore 
a look of mild amazement. Was it genuine? the 
lucky finder would ask. Ah, that was a question 
she could never answer, unfortunately. She had 
bought it as a speculation, or her agent had sent it i 
to her, but she could not vouch for it. Then she 
would look so childishly stupid that it was impos- 
sible to consider her a connoisseur, and I myself 
was never able to discover whether or not she was a 
judge of bric-a-brac. 

“Is this genuine?” I asked once when a new piece 
of tapestry came. “Is it genuine, Alida? or did 
your friends in Rotterdam make it for you? — the 
cousins, for instance, who make the cupboards, or the 
uncle who makes the old clocks? Is it genuine ?” 


AT THE MAISON DOBBE. 


149 


“I think so; I do not know,” she replied, in her 
helpless way. “How can I tell? Ah, miss, if I 
order an old clock to be made for me, then I know 
it is not genuine; but when I buy a ready-made 
old clock I cannot tell. Nobody can,” she added, 
with a cynical smile. 

She was likewise ignorant of her parentage. She 
was almost sure her father was Dutch, she fancied 
her mother was Eussian. 

“It makes no difference,” she said. “They are 
dead — I know that — and buried.” 

Her idea of happiness was to eat and drink her 
fill, and then listen in dreamy silence to an endless 
round of operatic airs tinkled out of a large music- 
j box. At such times Adolphe would steal in and 
place a cup of black coffee at her elbow — coffee that 
he had made himself, just as he knew she liked it. 

“That good Adolphe !” she would murmur, so 
caressingly that a gleam of pleasure always lighted 
up the good Adolphe’s broad, stolid countenance. 

He puzzled me quite as much as his mistress did. 
He was not servile, although he washed the china ; 
and he had a very independent air despite his half 
livery. I found myself wondering how old he 
might be, for he was one of those slim creatures with 
dusty blond hair and white eyebrows whose age is 
extremely difficult to guess. His skin was fresh and 
rosy, not a trace of beard was visible ; but in his lit- 
tle gray eyes lurked an expression not altogether 
boyish. Alida treated him as though he were a lad 
of sixteen summers, and sometimes urged him to 
take a holiday — an offer which he always declined. 

“He is too sedate for his years,” she said. “It 


150 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 

is not natural that a boy should work as he does. 
Would you believe it?— he gets a lesson in English 
three evenings in the week.” And from this stray 
remark I surmised that Adolphe w^as more ambi- 
tious than lie looked. 

Life at the Maison Dobbe was growing rather 
humdrum, when we were all plunged into a state 
of great excitement by the appearance of Edouard 
Braun. Ilis good looks did not propitiate me, and 
he took such pains to explain that he was Braun, not 
Brown, that I instantly made up my mind he was 
English, not German. My opinion was strength- 
ened by his beautiful Cockney accent, which he de- 
clared was acquired during his long residence in 
London. 

Alida, who believed no one, did believe him, and 
gravely told me that he was a rich man and a mem- 
ber of an excellent family in Vienna. Adolphe and 
I were sceptical, the maid sided with her mistress, 
and so the house of Dobbe was divided against it- 
self. 

One dismal afternoon I found Adolphe in the 
shop, poring over a tattered copy of one of Ouida’s 
romances, and looking out the words in the diction- 
ary with a gravity and earnestness that struck me as 
truly comic. “Where is Mademoiselle Dobbe?” I 
asked, in English. 

“Gone out with Monsieur Braun,” Adolphe an- 
swered, in the same language. He paused, looked 
at me, and added, sadly, “ Damn that Braun !” 

“Oh, you must not say that!” I exclaimed, with 
all a spinster’s horror of profanity. 

“Is it not good English?” quoth Adolphe, in die- 


AT THE MAISON DOBBE. 


151 


rubic innocence. “ It is in this book here,” tapping 
the tattered romance. 

I was forced to admit that it was idiomatic and 
correct enough in one sense; but when I explained 
my objection to the adjective, Adolphe glided off in 
a torrent of glib French apologies. “ But, made- 
moiselle,”, he continued, “ that Braun gambles at 
Monte Carlo. He was a valet, and was discharged 
because he stole from his master. One of my 
friends knows him ; but, alas, I dare not say a 
word of this to Mademoiselle Dobbe.” lie looked 
ineffably miserable, and his lips quivered. 

I was on the point of giving him a franc to as- 
suage his childish grief, when two fussy, vulgar Eng- 
lish women entered the shop, and in bad French 
asked the price of a beautiful brass sconce. It was 
one of the articles that only Alida herself sold, but 
instead of saying that the proprietor was out, and the 
customers must call again, Adolphe rubbed his dusty 
hair, and hesitatingly demanded a hundred francs. 

I was horrified, for I knew the sconce to be worth 
only half that sum. 

Adolphe seemed frightened, confused, perplexed, 
and acted like such a blockhead that one of the 
women remarked frankly in her native tongue that 
he was quite an idiot. Then the customer asked to 
see the proprietor, and Adolphe stammered out that 
the proprietor had gone to Belgium to bury her 
mother. The comedy ended with the sale of the 
sconce. No sooner had the women quitted the shop 
than Adolphe turned to me with a smile — such a 
smile !— as astute as a Roman augur’s. I was glad 
I had not offered him a franc to assuage his grief. 


152 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


When lie told Alida of the bargain, she opened 
her sloe-black eyes. “ One hundred francs !” she re- 
peated. 

Adolphe nodded. “And my commission?” he 
murmured, softly. 

Alida gave him a tap on the shoulder and a piece 
of gold. Ever after she treated him with profound 
respect, and she said to me, “ He is Swiss ; he is 
clever.” 

Meanwhile Monsieur Braun came every day to 
the Maison Dobbe. He sang little songs to a guitar 
accompaniment, completely silencing the once fa- 
vorite music -box. I think that lie must at some 
time have figured in a music-hall, he knew such a 
string of tawdry ditties, and sang with such a melo- 
dramatic air. 

Adolphe listened to him patiently, and in the 
intervals of the singing served Alida with the cof- 
fee she loved. If black coffee could have broken 
the spell, Monsieur Braun would have received his 
conge, ; but the beverage was not so potent, and the 
sweethearts gallivanted gayly while Adolphe tend- 
ed shop and studied Ouida’s works. 

“She will marry him,” was the burden of his 
plaint. 

“Why should you care?” I asked at last. 

Adolphe stared. “ But he will spend all her mon- 
ey, mademoiselle. It is shameful,” he added, sadly, 
“ how foolish women are.” 

This unflattering remark puzzled me. It was the 
utterance of no callow boy, and I looked searchingly 
at Adolphe’s clean pi nk-and- white face. I detected 
tiny wrinkles around his eyes; I almost believed 


AT THE MAISON DOBBE. 


153 


there was a shimmer of gray over his thick, tow- 
colored hair. One morning early, unmistakable 
traces of a beard were visible. Altogether, I put 
Adolphe down as a man who for some occult reason 
chose to look as much like a boy as possible. My 
suspicions were deepened when I found him one 
day going through the pockets of Monsieur Braun’s 
light tan-colored overcoat. He brought out a pair 
of gloves, smelled them, and put them back. A 
gaudy silk handkerchief underwent the same treat- 
ment, and then from the depths of an inner pocket 
he produced a letter. 

As he was about to read it, I stepped forward. 
“ Adolphe,” said I, sternly. 

He beckoned to me with a smile. “What a fool 
is a man who leaves his letters in his pockets !” .he 
said, with a cunning expression. Then he calmly 
read the letter, made a few notes of its contents, 
and put the epistle back where he had found it. 

It was nothing to me what he or Alida or Monsieur 
Braun chose to do, but I watched them all with live- 
ly interest. I was not a whit surprised when one 
fine day Adolphe said he w T as going to take a vaca- 
tion. Alida begged him to stay, but he was inex- 
orable, and accordingly off he went, no one knew 
whither. About a week later I was called to Lon- 
don on business, and I too was forced to bid adieu 
to the Maison Dobbe. 

“You will never see the Maison Dobbe again,” 
Alida said. “I am going to sell up — or is it down?” 

“ Out,” I answered. “ And apres f” 

“ I am going to marry,” quoth Alida, “ and then 
farewell shop.” 


154 


CABIN" AN T D GONDOLA. 


To leave was like breaking off in the middle of 
a three- volume novel; and all the way to Pans I 
wondered what the end would be. Arrived there, 
however, the first person I met at the station was 
Adolphe, accompanying a stout, complacent, middle- 
aged dame evidently of London extraction. 

“Mees Penn i man !” cried Adolphe as soon as he 
caught sight of me. 

“ Going back to Nice ?” I said. 

He nodded : “And that lady yonder is going with 
me. She is English, she is rich, she takes in lodg- 
ers, and I want to introduce her to Mademoiselle 
Dobbe.” Adolphe passed his hand over his month, 
and smiled apologetically. “You see,” he added, 
“ she is Madame Edouard Braun.” Then Adolphe’s 
smile vanished. “ But she says she lias had enough 
of him; she says anybody is welcome to him. What 
do you suppose Mademoiselle Dobbe will do?” 

I was too much scandalized to reply immediately, 
and before I could put my horror at the question 
into words the guard came along and swept Adolphe 
and Madame Braun off to a carriage. For my part, 
I never wished to see them again, or Alida Dobbe 
either, but I must confess that I was curious to know 
how Adolphe’s question would be answered. It was 
a full year before I found out. I was in London 
that spring, and I met Alida in Regent Street. She 
was elegantly, not to say gaudily dressed in a straw- 
colored silk suit and a frivolous little lace bonnet. 
She leaned on the arm of a tall, slim man whose 
mustache and whiskers matched her dress perfectly 
: in color. She simpered and bridled when she saw 
me, and promptly begged leave to present her lius- 


AT THE MAISON DOBBE. 


155 


band, Monsieur Weitlaufer. Monsieur lifted his liat, 
and murmured “ charmed ” or “ delighted ” in a voice 
that sounded very familiar. I looked up at him 
quickly. 

“Yes,” said Alida, with a slow, rapturous smile — 
“ the good Adolphe.” 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


It was a fine midwinter day. Overhead, in depths 
of vivid blue, the sun shone cruelly bright, and beat 
down on the waves of the Mediterranean until they 
glittered like snake-scales. Everybody in Nice had 
come to the Promenade des Anglais — the invalids to 
be wheeled slowly up and down in their chairs, the 
well people to meet friends and see the world. The 
military band in the public garden played ceaseless- 
ly, and the cosmopolitan loungers on the benches 
chatted as ceaselessly in every modern tongue. Ven- 
ders of flowers, of guide-books, of photographs, of 
matches, of smoked glasses, hawked their wares, and 
a tall, copper-skinned fellow, dressed as a Turk, did 
his best to persuade the crowd that his pipes and 
cigar-holders were as excellent as his costume was 
picturesque. 

Some distance up the promenade, and almost out 
of hearing of the band, there sat on one of the 
benches facing the sea a tall, thin, elderly man, with 
a large mustache, which was dyed a glossy blue-black 
and waxed at the ends. In his button -hole was a 
bunch of violets, and across his knees lay a light 
walking-stick. A small white poodle slept peacefully 
in a ball at his feet. This gentleman saluted none 
of the passers-by, but he scrutinized them all keenly, 
and now and then rose and looked earnestly down 


WIIITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


157 


the promenade. Sometimes he pulled out his watch, 
glanced at it, and returned it to his pocket with a 
sort of sigh. This he did so often that it attracted 
the attention of two young men who sat on the next 
bench, smoking cigarettes. One of them, a stout, 
rubicund gentleman of perhaps five - and - twenty, 
chuckled, and indicating the occupant of the next 
bench by a slight gesture, said, in an undertone, 
“ That is the sixth time he has looked at his watch. 
Why do you suppose she keeps him waiting?” 

“Coquetry,” murmured his companion, drawing his 
hat down over his eyes to shield them from the sun. 

“Well, why does she coquet with an old fellow 
like that? lie is pale and thin, and I dare say he 
has the consumption, like everybody else here. Do 
you suppose he is rich — a Russian prince or a mill- 
ionaire merchant ?” 

' “Good heavens, Harry! what conundrums you 
ask ?” returned the young man with his hat over his 
eyes. “ If you take such an interest in Don Mous- 
tachio yonder, go ask him what his name is, where 
he comes from, what sort of hair-dye he uses, and 
whom he is waiting for. It won’t be necessary for 
you to explain that you are Harry Gale, from Hart- 
ford : he will know that you are a Yankee.” 

While he was speaking, Don Moustachio drew his 
watch out of his pocket once again, looked at it 
steadily for a full minute, and then, with a melan- 
choly, despondent air, walked down the promenade, 
the fat poodle w T addling along at his heels. 

“ He gives her up,” said Gale. “ And so should I. 
He has been on that bench an hour; and I saw him 
planted there yesterday. Jack, I would really like 


158 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


to see the siren. Is she young or old, lean or plump, 
blonde or brunette ?” 

“Can’t say, I’m sure,” Jack replied, lazily ; “but 
I advise you to come here every day and watcli for 
her. That would just suit you — you are so romantic. 
I should think you would realize how ridiculous it is 
for a fat fellow like you to be romantic.” 

“Hamlet was fat,” Gale retorted, good-humoredly. 

“Yes, Hamlet was fat,” said Jack; “and he was 
crazy too; and sometimes I think you are. Witness 
the affair on the steamer, witness the affair in Paris, 
witness the affair on the express train to Nice, and 
now witness this insane curiosity about an old fellow 
with a dyed mustache. Do you propose to remain 
on this bench for the next twenty-four hours to see 
if the siren comes after Don Moustachio ? You 
would if I were not here. Oh, you are romantic.” 

He rose, and from his height of six-feet-two gazed 
down quizzically at Gale, who crossed his legs and 
smoked with imperturbable tranquillity. At last, 
however, he rose too. 

“Forge ahead, Jack,” he said. “We will go back 
to the hotel if you like, although I am not in the 
least afraid of the sunset, which the people here 
seem to think ushers in a legion of devils. It is all 
humbug. Besides, I should like to stay and see the 
light fade out of the sea.” 

“Light fade out of the sea !” Jack exclaimed. 
“Let’s talk of something rational. What shall we 
have for dinner? Did you think the bisque last 
night was very good?” 

He thereupon began to elaborate a menu with 
such care that lie had only arrived at the entrees 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


159 


when the public garden was readied. It was almost 
deserted now. The band had gone away, and so had 
the invalids, and the crowd about the pavilion was 
dispersing rapidly in all directions. Already the 
twilight was drifting over the scene, bringing with 
it a breath of raw air. It was as though the curtain 
had been dropped and the lights put out. The two 
young men quickened their steps and struck into a 
long, swinging gait that soon brought them to the 
Hotel Chauvain. A superb functionary in livery 
met them at the door, and looked first at them and 
then at the letter he held. “ Which, please, is Mr. 
John Russel?” he said, in careful English. 

The tall man stretched out his hand and took the 
letter without a word. After glancing at the ad- 
dress, he said, lazily, “ Yes, it is worth a tip,” and 
thereupon dropped a coin in the superb functionary’s 
ev'er-ready palm. 

“ It is from the Langdons,” he continued, turning 
to Gale. “ They have a villa at San Remo ; item, a 
pretty daughter; item, a large fortune. I w T as asked 
to spend a week there, and I suppose this letter is the 
formal backing up of the informal invitation.” As 
he spoke he tore open the missive, and now he glanced 
over it rapidly. “ Yes,” said he, with evident satis- 
faction, “it is just as I supposed. Well, I shall ac- 
cept; and as they wish me to come at once, I will 
send them a despatch to-night, and to-morrow morn- 
ing bid adieu to Nice.” 

“ And to me,” said Gale, somewhat ruefully. 

“Only for a week,” Russel rejoined. “You can 
pick me up at San Remo, or I will meet you at Gen- 
oa and then go on to Rome as we proposed. The 


160 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


week that I am at San Remo you can spend in cul- 
tivating the acquaintance of the interesting gentle- 
man with the dyed mustache. A happy thought oc- 
curs to me. Perhaps you can supplant him in the 
affections of the mysterious siren.” Russel twisted 
the end of his pointed beard and looked wickedly at 
Gale. “You are always hungry for adventure, you 
know,” he added. 

“ I know I am hungry for my dinner now,” Gale 
rejoined. “ What did you say we were going to have 
to eat ? Thank Heaven ! for a week I can make my 
own bill of fare.” 

The early morning train carried Russel off to San 
Remo, and Gale was left alone in Hice. In the 
great crowd of Americans that overran the hotels, 
the streets, the shops, he knew not a soul, and he 
wandered about on the morning of Russel’s depart- 
ure, feeling rather lonesome, and finally went into 
the Hammam and indulged himself in the luxury of 
a Turkish bath. In the afternoon he of course w T ent 
with all the world to the Promenade des Anglais. 
After listening a while to the music, and watching a 
flirtation between a white-capped bonne and a natty 
little French soldier, he went off to see if Don Mous- 
tachio was at his post. lie found him seated on the 
same bench, a fresh bouquet of violets in his button- 
hole, and the fat poodle asleep at his feet. Gale 
lighted a cigar, and seating himself on the next 
bench, made a pretence of reading a week-old Fi- 
garo. Don Moustachio did not appear to see him. 
He sat with his hands resting on his walking-stick, 
and his eyes fixed upon the expanse of blue water 
that to-day shone like steel. When people passed 


WHITIIER CURIOSITY LED. 


161 


he glanced at them keenly, without, however, lifting 
his head, and, as before, he drew his watch out of 
his pocket now and then and gazed upon it with a 
reproachful expression. At four o’clock precisely 
he rose and walked away, and Gale, after a minute’s 
deliberation, followed him at a discreet distance. 
Don Moustachio went down the Promenade, through 
the public garden, crossed the Rue Massena, and 
turned up a narrow street lined with miscellaneous 
little shops. One of the most ambitious of these 
shops he entered. Over the door was a sign bearing 
the name “ Brenta,” and in the window was a show 
of photographs, stationeiy, carved woods, and knick- 
knacks generally. Although Gale promptly entered 
the shop too, he found its only occupant to be a 
plump, rosy woman, ensconced in an easy-chair be- 
hind the counter and sewing industriously. She 
came forward with a smile, and said, in very Eng- 
lish English, “ What can I show you, sir?” 

“ Note-paper,” Gale replied, laconically, wondering 
whether the gentleman with the dyed mustache had 
hidden under the counter. 

The plump woman gave him a big book of sam- 
ples to choose from, and while he was turning the 
pages, she chatted gayly about the weather, the num- 
ber of visitors at Nice, the new company at the thea- 
tre, and the man who had tried to kill himself the 
day before at Monte Carlo. 

Gale leaned over the counter and chatted too, until 
he finally became aware of the fact that he had 
spent nearly half an hour in the shop. u 1 11 take a 
quire of this,” he said, hastily indicating some note- 
paper of bright green tint. 


1G2 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


Madame Brenta— she had told him that she was 
the proprietor of the shop — wrapped up his purchase 
neatly, and, hoping that the next time he needed 
anything in her line he would call, bade him a polite 
good- afternoon. 

“ But meanwhile where the deuce is Don Mous- 
tachio ?” said Gale to himself when he struck the 
sidewalk. Surely he went into the shop, and as sure- 
ly he was not there when Gale entered. 

The next afternoon, however, lie was at his post 
on the Promenade, the bunch of violets in his but- 
ton-hole, and the poodle asleep at his feet. He was 
evidently conscious that the blond, rubicund occu- 
pant of the next bench had a familiar face, and he 
and Gale exchanged a formal salutation. Gale read 
liis paper as before until he mustered up courage to 
address Don Moustachio and ask the hour. “ My 
watch has run down,” he added, apologetically. 

“ It is now exactly twenty-three minutes of four,” 
the elder gentleman replied, courteously, and in Eng- 
lish that had a queer foreign accent, neither French, 
German, nor Italian. “ I never let my watch run 
down,” he continued : “it is a careless habit into 
which I have never allowed myself to fall.” 

The poodle looked up sleepily and wagged his 
tail. 

“ Ilis name is ‘ Fall/ ” said Don Moustachio, u and 
he thinks I spoke to him. He is very sagacious. Go 
to sleep, Fall.” And then he repeated the command 
in a language that was certainly not German, al- 
though it sounded rather like it. 

“Not sagacious enough, though, to understand 
English,” said Gale, with his over-ready smile. 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


163 


“No ; I always speak Dutch to him. I am Dutch 
by birth. I came from Rotterdam, but I have lived 
here some time.” 

“ You speak English well,” Gale hazarded. 

“ Ten of the years of my youth were spent in Lon- 
don,” was the reply, “ and my sister-in-law, whom I 
see much of, is English, so I keep in constant prac- 
tice. Monsieur is an American, unless I mistake ?” 

“ Yes,” Gale said, feeling a trifle mortified, “ I 
am an American. Is my accent very nasal?” lie 
added. 

“ Not very ; but still it is not English, monsieur. 
Myself, I prefer the American accent: it is much 
more distinct and easily understood. Also, I prefer 
the Americans.” 

Gale lifted his hat for his countrymen, and said, 
“ Thank you,” then resumed the reading of his pa- 
per, while Don Moustachio took up his former atti- 
tude of patient expectancy. 

An old gentleman wrapped in furs passed by, 
leaning heavily on the arm of a smug-faced servant ; 
then came a man and his wife, evidently plain Amer- 
icans from some interior town, who gazed about them 
with forlorn interest; and following them was a 
bevy of merry English girls, with a distracted gov- 
erness in tow. 

Suddenly Don Moustachio rose and looked ear- 
nestly down the Promenade. Gale naturally peered 
over the top of his paper, and saw that the cause 
of his neighbor’s excitement was a lone female ad- 
vancing rapidly, her face quite hidden by a neat um- 
brella, with which she kept off the reflection of the 
sun on the sea. As she drew near, Don Moustachio 


164 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


smoothed his gloved hands nervously, and Gale was 
so interested that he forgot his paper and stared 
openly. Was this, then, the siren, this plump, trim 
person clad all in black and clasping a large prayer- 
book ? The prayer-book served to remind Gale that 
it was Sunday — a fact he had totally forgotten. She 
held her umbrella in such a way that her face was 
not visible until she arrived quite opposite the two 
men, and then was revealed a rosy English counte- 
nance, whereon unswerving respectability and deco- 
rum were stamped. She passed on without lifting 
her eyes, and Don Moustachio sank back on the 
bench again. He glanced towards Gale, and catch- 
ing sight of that young man’s curious gaze, smiled a 
little and reddened. Then he frowned, looked at his 
watch sternly, and walked away, the faithful and sa- 
gacious poodle at his heels. Gale did not dare fol- 
low him, although his curiosity was now at fever-heat, 
and he burned to know whether Don Moustachio 
would again vanish in Madame Brenta’s shop. Pos- 
sibly he was that lady’s husband. Possibly that 
lady had another man for a husband and the Dutch 
gallant for a lover. It was the South of France, 
and anything was possible. 

Gale reached the rendezvous on the Promenade 
early the next day, and found Don Moustachio’s 
bench empty. Presently, however, that gentleman 
appeared, walking slowly, not as though he wished 
to saunter along and enjoy the fine weather, but 
as though it Was something of -an effort to put one 
foot before the other. Far from being annoyed at 
Gale’s presence, he greeted him almost cordially, 
and remarked that it was a fine day. 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


165 


“Yes, a line day,” Gale rejoined. “But all the 
days are fine here, it seems to me.” 

“Too fine; too glaring,” said Don Moustachio, 
discontentedly. “ I get tired of the everlasting 
sunshine, and I long for a gray day, such as one 
enjoys in Holland and England. Ah, what a relief 
a dark, rainy day would be !” 

“ But we couldn’t come here in the rain,” Gale 
said ; “ and I prefer sitting out-of-doors in the sun- 
shine, to staying in the house and listening to the 
rain-drops.” 

“ You seem very fond of the Promenade,” said 
Don Moustachio, “ and especially fond of this particu- 
lar part of it. Perhaps there is a reason for it.” 
And Don Moustachio smiled in a mischievous, mean- 
ing way, and then slowly shut one eye and looked at 
Gale out of the other with an air of ineffable wis- 
dom. Gale’s red face grew redder yet. Did the 
gentleman from Rotterdam suspect anything? Was 
he conscious of being an object of Yankee curiosity? 
Were duels fashionable in Holland? 

“ Yes,” said Gale, frankly ; u I confess I have a 
reason for coming here so regularly.” 

The elder man twisted up the ends of his dyed 
mustache and assumed a jaunty air. “A singular 
coincidence,” he said, with a very brotherly smile. 
“ I too have a reason for coming here so regularly.” 

“ So ?” said Gale. He strangled an incipient laugh, 
and picked up his newspaper. His neighbor fancied 
that he, also, was waiting for a siren. 

Fortune favors the audacious. To Gale’s intense 
amazement, before a half-hour had elapsed he spied 
Miss Kate Brigham, of Chicago, tripping gayly down 


166 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


the Promenade, quite alone, and looking, in her 
French costume, as pretty as ever a pretty Ameri- 
can girl could. Of course he rose and met her. 

“Well, I didn’t expect to see you,” she said, ten- 
dering him her hand. 

“And I certainly did not expect to see you,” he 
rejoined, strolling along beside her. “ What are you 
doing here ?” 

“Having a good time, of course. I am with the 
Mores, and we are at the Hotel des Anglais : we al- 
ways go to the hotel that stands first in Baedeker. 
You must come and see us.” 

“ Oh, I will,” said Gale, “ although I haven’t the 
pleasure of knowing the Mores. But how do you 
happen to be out here on the Promenade all by 
yourself ?” 

“Pm taking a constitutional, that’s all. Jennie 
More has a headache, and Mrs. More never exercises ; 
so I had to come alone. Besides, I like to see the 
crowd. It’s pretty gay here — gayer than Paris, it 
seems, for in Paris the gayety is spread out, and here 
it is all in a bunch. We went to Monte Carlo yes- 
terday. You have been to Monte Carlo, haven’t 
you ?” 

“ Yes, I have been to Monte Carlo, and came 
away a hundred francs richer than I went.” 

“ Oh, you ought not to gamble. Don’t tell ; but I 
made fifty francs there, and then I lost them, and 
ten francs more trying to get them back. Sixty 
francs !” 

“ Call it twelve dollars,” said Gale. “ It doesn’t 
sound so awful. Reckon your earnings in francs 
and your losses in dollars. Halloo ! Who is the old 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


167 


gentleman in the carriage? He is certainly beckon- 
ing to yon, or else he is a raving maniac ?” 

“ Why, it is Mr. More !” cried Miss Brigham. “ Of 
course he wants me to drive with him, and I suppose 
I must go ; but I would a good deal rather walk up 
and down the Promenade with you. Don’t fail to 
come and see us.” 

With this she tripped up to the carriage and took 
her place beside white-haired Mr. More, who smiled 
at her benignly. 

Gale walked back to Don Moustachio, whom he 
found in a most playful frame of mind. 

“ Ah, you rogue,” he cried, shaking his cane gayly, 
“you acted the little comedy so well! yon were so 
surprised, and she was so surprised ! It was beauti- 
ful.” 

“I dare say it was,” Gale returned, rather dryly, 
•and glancing at his watch. “ Past four o’clock,” he 
added. 

Don Moustachio’s playfulness vanished. “ Then 
I shall go home,” he said, heaving a sigh. “ But al- 
low me.” And now he produced a card from his 
pocket and presented it to Gale with a bow. On 
the card was neatly engraved the name Kudolph 
Brenta. 

Gale immediately returned the compliment by 
presenting his card, and then the two men walked 
down the Promenade together. 

“Will you not come and take a glass of wine 
with me ?” said the American, true to the habits of 
his native land. 

“With pleasure,” responded Monsieur Brenta; 
and presently they entered a <?#/£, and Gale ordered 


1G8 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


a bottle of 'the Burgundy which was put down at 
the highest figure on the wine-card. The Burgundy 
warmed the cockles of Monsieur Brenta’s heart, and 
loosened his never very stiff tongue. 

“ Ah •!” he said at last, with a melancholy shake of 
the head, “ I envied you when I saw you going down 
the Promenade, so happy, and smiling at her so ten- 
derly.” 

“Your turn will come,” Gale rejoined, in soothing 
accents. 

‘ “ I fear she is ill,” Monsieur Brenta said. He 
leaned his head on his hand and gazed down at a 
spot of wine on the table. “ She has not come to 
the rendezvous now for several days, and she used 
to be there so often. Perhaps, though, the children 
have kept her. She is an English governess in a 
family here, and her time is not at her own dispos- 
al. It seems long since I have seen her, although, 
of course, it cannot be a week.” He drained his 
wineglass with sad satisfaction. “ I fear she is ill,” 
he repeated. 

“Wliv not go and find out, or write?” said Gale, 
with American directness. 

“ Oh, that would never do !” Monsieur Brenta ex- 
claimed. “The family in which she lives is very 
severe: the father looks over the letters with the eye 
of a — a watch-mender. But they treat her kindly, 
and I must not cause her to lose her position. Un- 
luckily, I cannot marry just now — money-difficulties, 
you know ; but they will come out all right. Pa- 
zienza , as the Italians say.” 

Gale instantly came to the conclusion that his new 
acquaintance was a Monte-Carlo man, and was wait- 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


169 


ing until a lucky turn at the roulette- table should 
relieve him of his difficulties. He- wondered wheth- 
er the English governess had any notion of the nat- 
ure of her sweetheart’s mode of life. And was she 
an English governess ? 

“I am stopping with my sister-in-law, Madame 
Brenta,” monsieur continued. “ She, too, is an Eng- 
lishwoman ; but, bah ! not like mine. She is too 
fat, you know,” and he screwed up his face in scorn, 
“and too prosaic. However, she is clever: she 
makes money. All the English residents know her, 

I and come to her when they want anything. That’s 
partly because she goes to church on Sundays. But 
she treats me well ; I can find no fault with my sis- 
ter-in-law, although I confess I shall be glad when I 
can return to Holland.” 

“You did not come here for your health, then?” 
said Gale, noting monsieur’s sunken cheeks. 

“My health? No, indeed : we are all thin in my 
family, but we have constitutions like oxen. I came 
because there is a man here who owes me some 
money. I am putting the law on him — turning the 
screws. And he squeals. I learned that phrase 
from an American — a South-American. His name 
was De la Vergne, and he came from New Orleans. 
But I must not stay here any longer, for I promised 
my little nephew I would take him to the house of 
one of his friends. There is to be a party, I be- 
lieve. I wish you good-afternoon, Mr. Gale, and I 
hope to see you to-morrow.” 

That evening Gale went to Monte Carlo ; but al- 
though he stayed until the midnight train, not a 
glimpse did he have of Monsieur Brenta. Perhaps, 


170 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


after all, he was not a gambler; perhaps his money- 
difficulties were not connected with a roulette -ta- 
ble. Poor old fellow ! there was something honest 
and unaffected about him, in spite of his blue-black 
mustache. Such were Gale’s reflections as he doffed 
his clothes that night and slipped into bed. 

He went to the rendezvous the next afternoon, 
feeling as anxious as though he expected to meet a 
true-love himself. But Monsieur Brenta did notap- 
pear. On the bench he usually occupied sat a flashy 
dame, dressed out in blue and gold, and holding a 
gaudy parasol over* the smallest of small bonnets. 
And the next afternoon Brenta again did not ap- 
pear. Gale waited for him until past four o’clock, 
and then made his way to the little shop where he 
had bought the green note-paper, and there lie foiind 
Madame Brenta, suave and smiling as usual. 

“I have had * the pleasure of making Monsieur 
Rudolph Brenta’s acquaintance,” Gale said, taking 
off his hat, “ and I had a sort of engagement with 
him yesterday, but he failed to keep it. As he did 
not come to-day either, I feared that he might be ill.” 

“ He has taken a cold,” Madame Brenta replied, 
“ and I persuaded him to stay in the house. He was 
speaking of you this morning, and I know he would 
be glad to see you. Won’t you walk into the par- 
lor?” 

“With pleasure,” said Gale; and then he followed 
her into a good-sized room at the back of the shop. 
There sat Monsieur Brenta, a huge white silk hand- 
kerchief round his neck, playing checkers with a lit- 
tle boy. He rose at Gale’s entrance, and held out 
his hand with evident pleasure. 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


171 


“Ah, this is kind of yon,” he cried. “It wasn’t 
difficult to find out where I lived, was it ? I fancy 
everybody in Nice knows the Brentas. You see, I 
am condemned to remain in the house; but I am 
not in the least ill.” 

Then he addressed a few words in Dutch to the 
little boy, who straightway left the room. 

“ My nephew understands some English — too 
much in fact. I wanted to ask you if you were on 
the Promenade — you know where — and if anybody 
came as though looking for somebody else. Under- 
stand ?” 

“Yes, I understand,” said Gale; “and I was there, 
but nobody came.” 

Monsieur Brenta now detached a large locket 
from his watch-chain, and opening it, handed it to 
Gale without a word. He looked at the miniature 
earnestly. It represented a blooming English face, 
but by no- means a weak, sentimental one, and he 
wondered how a woman who looked like that, so 
strong and self-reliant, could make a rendezvous on 
the Promenade des Anglais with an elderly man 
who dyed his mustache. lie was, however, wise 
enough not to attempt to solve the problem of affin- 
ities, and he handed back the miniature, saying, 

“ A sweet face, Monsieur Brenta.” 

“ It is more than that, Mr. Gale,” he replied, grave- 
ly: “it is a good face, and worth a thousand weak, 
pretty, insincere countenances.” 

Gale’s respect for his host grew stronger on the 
spot. Perhaps he was a little garrulous, and there 
was no doubt about the mustache being dyed ; but 
he was neither a fool nor a knave, and for the first 


172 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


time Gale felt ashamed of his curiosity and of him- 
self. Mentally, he determined that he would never 
tell John Russel about Don Moustachio and the Eng- 
lish governess. 

He stayed there some time, chatting upon one 
topic and another, and he made the discovery that 
Monsieur Brenta was a man of more than ordinary 
intelligence. He had read a good de^il, and was 
very well informed upon all the questions of the 
day. Finally, however, Gale rose to take his leave. 

“ Au revoir ,” said Monsieur Brenta, “ until to- 
morrow on the Promenade.” 

In the shop Madame Brenta stopped him. “ Does 
Monsieur Brenta seem at all worried about his 
health ?” she asked. “ He might say things to you 
that he would keep even from me.” ~ 

Gale stared at her in blank amazement. “He — 
he is very cheerful,” he replied. “Is there anything 
serious the matter with him?” 

“Consumption,” she said, curtly. “A sudden 
cold is very dangerous.” 

“I am sorry to hear that,” Gale said. “I hope 
this bad turn won’t last long.” And then he hur- 
ried out into the dusky street. 

He went the next day to the Promenade, but he 
had a premonition that he should not find Monsieur 
Brenta there, and this premonition proved correct. 
Again he went to the shop. Instead of plump, smil- 
ing Madame Brenta, he was met by a grenadier- 
like Frenchwoman. 

“Is Monsieur Brenta worse?” he asked, in the 
grenadier-like woman’s native tono-ue. 

“Yes; he had a hemorrhage last night — a very 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


173 


bad one. Here is tlie doctor now,” said the French- 
woman. 

Gale turned as a short, stout man with a gray 
beard came out of the little parlor. “ Is Monsieur 
Brenta worse ?” he asked again. 

“A mere question of time,” the doctor answered. 
“He has had too many such attacks for him* to rally 
from this one. It is the last.” And the doctor hur- 
ried out of the shop and jumped into his coupe. 

Obeying a sudden impulse — something which he 
indeed always obeyed — Gale took his card from his 
pocket and wrote thereon, “ If I can be of any as- 
sistance to you, send for me. I am at the Hotel 
Chauvain.” This he handed to the Frenchwoman, 
asking her to give it to Madame Brenta. His re- 
flections as lie walked towards the hotel were sad 
ones. He reproached himself for having watched 
Monsieur Brenta, for having deceived him and coax- 
ed his secret from him. And he had done it out 
of sheer curiosity, to make a piquant tale wherewith 
to amuse Russel. But he would never amuse Rus- 
sel with this story: it would always make him mel- 
ancholy to think of it. And, meanwhile, he won- 
dered where the English governess was. What 
would she say when she heard of Rudolph Brenta’s 
fate? 

“Deuce take it!” said Gale to himself. “I will 
go to Genoa to-morrow.” 

The next morning, while he was sipping his coffee, 
a little note was given to him. It ran as follows: 

“Dear Sir, — Monsieur Brenta is very anxious to 
see you. He has not told me why ; but I can easily 


174 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


imagine. I beg you will regard his wish. It is 
among the last he will ever express. 

“Mary Beenta.” 

“ By George !” said Gale. “ Why did I ever ask 
the poor old fellow what time it was ?” 

He went to the little shop at once, and was met 
in the door-way by Madame Brenta. 

“ He is very weak,” she said, without any pream- 
ble; “and don’t stay with him long. Humor him. 
It will not cost you anything.” Her voice was curi- 
ously hard, but there were tears in her eyes. “ I 
understand it all,” she continued, “ and I will ex- 
plain ; but go in to him now. He is expecting you.” 

She led him into a small room off the parlor, back 
of the shop, and there on the bed lay Monsieur Bren- 
ta. Hair and mustache were silvery -white now, 
and his face was deathly pale. • He held out his 
hand with a smile. “ I knew you would come, Mr. 
Gale,” he said, in a feeble voice. “ Will you do 
something for me? I want you to go to that place 
on the Promenade, and explain to her why I am not 
there. You will know her from her portrait. She 
will be dressed in black. She always wears black. 
Her name — did I tell you her name ?” 

Gale shook his head. 

“Her name is Elton. And give her this.” He 
now brought a ring from under his pillow. “ It be- 
longed to her mother, and she only lent it to me so 
that I could have another made of the right size. 
Don’t say anything to my sister-in-law about it. She 
is so — so unsympathetic. But she is — very kind — 
to me.” 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


175 


Ilis voice fell away into a whisper, and he closed 
his eyes. 

“ I am tiring yon,” Gale said, taking his hand, 
“so I will bid you good-bye. I will do as von 
| wish.” 

Monsieur Brenta opened his eyes and smiled. “ I 
am not so very ill,” he said, with an effort. “ Tell 
her — I will be on — on the Promenade in a few — 
days. Au revoir .” 

“Au revoii Gale murmured, as he went softly 
from the room. 

“What did lie want?” said Madame Brenta, 
when he entered the shop. “ There are no money- 
troubles, are there ?” 

“Ho money-troubles,” he replied; “but Monsieur 
Brenta asked me not tq tell you what he wanted 
me to do for him, and I — I don’t know whether I 
ought to violate his confidence. I only met him by 
chance on the Promenade. He was always there 
on the same bench, and we made each other’s ac- 
quaintance, and, some way, we grew very confiden- 
tial. He seems to trust me.” 

“Don’t you think I understand?” said Madame 
Brenta, laying her hand on the young man’s arm, 

; and smiling sadly. “You are not the first he has 
taken into his confidence — although none of his 
chance acquaintances ever came to the house be- 
fore. I think that you are a gentleman.” 

“ I hope I am,” Gale stammered. 

“ I know exactly what he told you,” she contin- 
ued. “He said he was waiting to meet an English 
governess, but that she had not come to the ren- 
dezvous for several days, and he feared she was ill. 


176 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


lie said lie had money-difficulties which prevented 
his marrying. lie said he had a lawsuit.” 

Gale looked at her in wonder. Her face was 
rather stern, and the ready smile of the trader had 
vanished from her lips. 

“Did he show you the miniature?” she added. 

“ Yes,” said Gale. 

“ And did it not remind you of some one you had 
seen before?” she now asked, in such an odd tone 
that Gale looked at her suddenly. 

“ Why, it was you !” he exclaimed, a great light 
breaking in upon him all at once. 

“ Yes, it was I, Mr. Gale. I was the English gov- 
erness — not an accomplished governess : I only 
taught the children simple things, for they were all 
young. I met Monsieur Br§nta first at the house of 
one of my friends. Afterwards I used to see him 
there on the Promenade. It was foolish; but I was 
young. And I have never regretted it. That was 
more than ten years ago ; and as soon as I had saved 
enough money to buy my outfit we were married — ” 

“ Married !” cried Gale. “ Why, he said you were 
his sister-in-law !” 

“ I am his wife,” she returned, with quiet dignity. 
“ Two years after our marriage he lost some money 
— he had never had very much— and he became low- 
spirited. Finally, he fell ill of a fever, and I thought 
he would die; but he did get well, only he forgot 
that I was his wife, and that he had a little son, and 
always after he imagined that I was his sister-in-law, 
and treated me accordingly. I have carried on the 
shop, he keeping accounts and attending to the cor- 
respondence and doing many things as well as ever. 


WHITHER CURIOSITY LED. 


177 


At three o’clock, however, he thought he must be at 
the appointed place on the Promenade. He has al- 
ways been kind to me and the child.” Her voice 
broke, but she controlled herself. “ It has been very 
hard,” she added. 

Gale brought out of his pocket the ring that Mon- 
sieur Brenta had given him, and laid it in madame’s 
hand. 

“It was mine,” she said, looking at it gravely. 
“But you must excuse me now; he will need me: 
he is so weak. Good-bye, Mr. Gale.” 

“ Good-bye, Madame Brenta,” he said. 

The next day the shutters were up before the 
shop- window. 

12 


BY PARNA’S GRAVE. 




The train paused at every lonely station, some- 
times permitting a passenger to alight, but oftener 
gathering up belated summer tourists — the women 
with golden-rod or asters in their belts, the men with 
fish-baskets or game-bags over their shoulders. The 
one passenger-car was old and small and low-ceiled, 
the red-plush seats were faded, the little panes of 
glass grimy, and it was oyly after repeated efforts 
that I succeeded in raising the window to let the soft 
wind of early autumn blow against my face. It was 
with regret that I viewed the fields and woods, for I 
was leaving them, and every tree beckoned to me, 
and whispered, “ Stay — stay until the frost has turn- 
ed our leaves, until November gales have stripped 
us bare, until we hide beneath the thick white snow r , 
until the spring comes slowly up our way.” I won- 
dered if I would stay if I could; whether, if all the 
world were before me, I would choose to pitch my 
tent on some solitary beach or within sound of the 
soughing pines. Was not my longing born of a 
comfortable contentment? Was I not in my heart 
of hearts downright glad to be going back to the 
town, to my friends, my work, my winter pleasures? 
A gi;eat clump of sumach burned red in a little hol- 
low, and my thoughts jumped to the reading-room of 
my club, to a deep, crimson arm-chair by the open 


BY PARNA’S GRAVE. 


179 


fire, and in an instant the rumble of the train sound- 
ed like the laden omnibuses toiling over the city 
street. The conversation of two stolid, middle-aged 
men behind me called me back from my dreams, 
and I was listening to their droning account of the 
evil doings of sundry persons in Saybrook, when the 
train stopped, and the brakeman called out the place 
in an inquiring tone that matched his upturned nose 
and high circling eyebrows. From my window I 
saw on the platform two youngish, querulous-look- 
ing women, who regarded with anxious interest a 
thick-set, white-haired old man. Evidently he was 
about to start on a journey, for he carried a satchel 
which was as new and shining as his tall silk hat. 
He sprang down from the platform, not lightly, but 
gayly, and with a half -laughing, half - frowning re- 
fusal of the aid eagerly tendered him by both the 
fussy women. They glanced at each other signifi- 
cantly and pursed up their lips. 

“ How, pa, you have got to take some sort of care 
of yourself,” said one of them, in aggrieved tones. 
“You will git hurt if you go jumping about that 
way.” 

The other woman shook her head with a forlorn 
air that was in itself a prophecy of future mishap to 
the agile old gentleman ; and then she and her com- 
panion lifted their skirts very high and stepped down 
to the ground carefully, as if to show that they knew 
enough to be heedful how they placed their precious 
feet. Then they gave the old gentleman much dole- 
ful good advice, and he, declaring that he was a sight 
smarter than they thought, bestowed a hearty kiss 
upon each, and, wrenching himself free from their 


180 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


clutches, got on the car just as the train began to glide 
away. He came slowly down the aisle, looking right 
and left towards the well-filled seats, until he arrived 
opposite me, when he halted and glanced at the port- 
manteau that so far had been a defence against in- 
truders. I made a place for him at once, for my 
heart warmed towards him — I hardly know why, 
unless it were because he reminded me vaguely of 
my own white-haired father, dead this many a year. 

“ Thank you, young man,” he said. “ Got the 
window open, eh? Just lemme wave my handker- 
chief out of it to the girls, will you ?” 

He leaned heavily on my knees and waved his 
handkerchief merrily to the two women, who shook 
theirs sadly in return. This ceremony over, my com- 
panion squared himself in the seat and looked un- 
naturally grave. He wore a new suit of black 
broadcloth, cut as only a country tailor can cut black 
broadcloth, the low vest displaying a great expanse 
of white shirt that ended at the neck in a high col- 
lar, about which was tied a soft black silk scarf. 
The ends and loops of the scarf were so carefully 
pulled out and arranged that I would have wagered 
anything that one of those elderly girls had presided 
over this part of the old gentleman’s toilet His 
hands were brown, but not hard as those are of a 
man who holds a plough, and his face was lighted 
by a pair of shrewd, twinkling blue eyes. He 
brushed a white thread off his coat, he crossed his 
legs, he looked askant at me, and remarked that it 
was a fine day. I replied promptly that I had never 
known' more perfect autumn weather. 

“Just the morning to start off,” said the old man. 


BY PARNA’S GRAVE. 


181 


“ My gi^s kind o’ surmised it would rain ; but I 
guess it was only because they wanted to keep me 
home. They couldn’t see why I should start up all 
of a sudden and go visiting.” 

“ So you are off on a pleasure-trip ?” I remarked. 

He nodded and smiled : u I ain’t going very far ; 
but it’s to a place where I ain’t been in a long time, 
though I have lived within twenty miles of it for 
more than thirty-five years. Queer how you travel 
here and there and don’t think of places right near 
home.” 

“ Yes,” I said. “ I was born and raised fifty or 
sixty miles from Niagara, but I never went to see 
the Falls.” 

My companion slapped his knee : “ That’s just it. 
I have been living almost next door, as you might 
say, to my old home, where I grew up, and I ain’t 
been there in ten years. I went over once to 
the funeral of an uncle of mine, my mother’s only 
brother, and I ain’t seen any of the folks, except now 
and then as they would come on business or some- 
thing of that sort to our village. Lately, though, I 
have had a great desire to go back — want to see the 
orchards that I hooked apples from when I was a 
boy.” lie paused and chuckled at the delightful 
memory of his youthful pranks ; but his face grew 
grave, and when he continued it was in a low, con- 
fidential tone : “ You see, I have got to go pretty 
soon, for I had a warning this spring — a stroke — 
paralysis — apoplexy — I don’t know which ; but for a 
while I was bad off. I can’t do much nowadays, 
and my sons-in-law run the store mostly ; and so I 
says to the girls that I would buy a new suit of 


182 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


clothes. I should have to have ’em anyhow to be 
buried in, and I might as well get a little wear out 
of ’em first. So I got the suit ; and then I made up 
my mind to go visiting. The girls didn’t like to 
have me go off ; but I ain’t got so old as to be bossed 
around like a child. I knew I could take care of 
myself, and I know everybody in Baldwin — that’s 
the name of the place I am going to; next station 
but one. I was raised there. I guess this will be 
my last visit — though a man may have a shake and 
live twenty years afterwards. It don’t make me 
much alive, somehow ; though I ain’t so pious as to 
want to die and go to heaven right off.” 

He smiled, and his eyes twinkled, but his words 
were pathetic to me. Perhaps I encouraged him to 
talk, for he rambled on, telling me all about his fam- 
ily and business affairs, and winding up with an ac- 
count of his wife’s death, which had occurred the 
winter before. He was deep in the details of her 
last illness when the train stopped so suddenly as to 
startle everybody, and the men with one accord hast- 
ened out of the car and rushed forward to find out 
what had happened. A freight - train had run oh 
the track, wrecking one car completely ; but a gang 
of laborers had already arrived from New Haven, 
and the conductor told us that the way w T ould be 
cleared in an hour or so. Leaving my new friend 
to watch the progress of the work, I sauntered slow- 
ly down a shady road that wound through lonely 
fields. Presently I came on a little school - house, 
painted white, and through the opened windows and 
door I Saw a few children seated at their desks, 
while a few others stood up before the spinster 


BY PARNA’S GRAVE. 


183 


teacher, reciting a lesson. I felt a thrill of pity for 
the lint-locked urchin who was saying the multipli- 
cation-table, stumbling over the nines, just as I had 
in my boyhood. Opposite was a graveyard, running 
up steep to the east and enclosed by a low stone wall 
that was almost hidden beneath tangled vines and 
sprawling bushes. There were no paths, and the 
gravestones peered out from a dense growth of tall 
grasses, purple asters, and vivid golden-rod. One 
stone marked the grave of a certain Apollos Wel- 
they, who had fallen in the battle of Seven Mount- 
ains. I made my way about the graves slowly, but 
I found no quaint epitaphs, although some of the 
names struck me as extraordinary — such as Hoali- 
diali and Parthena and Minervia. Far up on the 
brow of the hill was a simple marble slab, marking 
the place where Parna Shelby was buried, who had 
died in 1846, aged eighteen. Set back in the head- 
stone, and protected by a marble flap that hung on 
a hinge, I discovered a daguerrotvpe of the dead 
girl, and I looked long and earnestly on the pict- 
ured face. The expression was gentle and win- 
ning. Her thick hair was drawn back from a 
broad intelligent brow, and the shadow of a smile 
lurked in the corners of her mouth. Her large 
eyes met mine with a sort of entreaty, making an 
appeal for sympathy and respect. At her throat an 
old-fashioned brooch fastened a pretty embroidered 
collar, and the austerely simple dress fitted smoothly 
over her sloping shoulders and girlish breast. She 
had died in September: perhaps she had been bur- 
ied on just such a day as this, when the golden-rod 
flamed along the fences, and the asters were abloom 


184 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


everywhere. She must have had friends to mourn 
her, a mother to weep bitter tears in the darkness of 
the night. Even the seasons, with their storms of 
rain and snow, had dealt tenderly with this portrait 
of her, hidden away in the stone. 

“You here?” 

I started. Behind me stood the garrulous old 
man, my companion in the cars, looking down at me 
seriously, and without a word he seated himself be- 
side me on the sunken stone near Parna’s grave. 
For a while we were silent, and the children in the 
school -house across the way began to recite some- 
thing in chorus, their voices rising and falling in a 
monotonous chant. 

“ Poor Parna !” said the old man, softly. 

“ You knew her ?” 

He nodded, and, taking hold of my arm, pointed 
to a church-spire that showed itself on a hill to the 
west. “That’s where Pm going,” he said. “It 
ain’t three miles away, and, as we have to stay here 
till the track is clear for the train, I thought I’d just 
walk down and see the graveyard. My folks are 
buried yender, under that pine - tree, and I suppose 
I’ll lay along-side of ’em some day. I told the girls 
to bring me. I’d rather be here than anywhere else, 
I guess.” 

After a minute’s pause he stretched out his hand, 
raised the marble flap, and looked at the portrait 
of Parna with a wavering smile. 

“ It’s a good likeness,” he continued. “ Her old 
father had it put in. She was all he had left, and 
he didn’t stay long after she was gone. He used 
to come here, and sit and look at the picture by the 


BY PARNA’S GRAVE. 


185 


hoar. Many’s the time I have seen him sitting here 
all alone, sort o’ talking, as though she could hear. 
He was childish, and I guess he thought she knew 
that he had come to keep her company. Perhaps 
she did.” And the old man let the flap fall over 
the portrait, and turned his blue eyes to me in sol- 
emn wonder. “ She used to teach school across the 
way,” he went on, “and all the children came to 
her funeral. Lord! it don’t seem but yesterday 
that we stood here listening to the clumps of earth 
falling on her coffin. Poor Parna! She was a 
good girl. Everybody loved her.” 

His voice broke, but an absent smile lingered on 
his face. “ She was engaged to be married,” he 
said, with a certain hesitation, “ and her sweetheart 
was ’most broken-hearted. He wasn’t of much ac- 
count, but she thought a good deal of him, and he 
was going to study for the ministry, though his 
folks were awful set against it, for, you see, he 
wasn’t so young, being — lemme see — oh, he was 
nigh onto ten years older than her.” 

“ And after she died ?” I asked. 

He drew down his mouth: “Well, he give up all 
thoughts of studying for the ministry. You see, he 
never felt he had a real call for it; but he would 
have studied to please her. After she was gone he 
did as his folks wanted him to, and went to a village 
where an uncle of his kept store. And he kept 
store — made some money at it, too; and when his 
uncle died lie got the business.” 

“ And did he ever marry V 9 

“Yes,” said the old man, slowly, and with an odd, 
deprecatory smile. “Yes, he married a woman no 


186 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


more like Parna than Martha in the Eible was like 
Mary. Not but what she was a good woman,” he 
added, hastily, “and an uncommon smart woman — 
a regular go-ahead, all energy, always driving, al- 
ways saving, up before daylight. Still, I don’t be- 
lieve Parna’s sweetheart ever forgot her, though 
he did marry and have children. Those were my 
daughters that brought me to the depot : you may 
have seen ’em. They are both married now, and 
they are both like their mother. They are their 
mother right over again, so to speak — all push and 
energy — and they just keep their husbands going- 
all the time. Now, Parna ” — here his voice grew 
soft, and he looked at the picture again— “she wasn’t 
one of that sort. She was gentle, and she had a 
low voice. She had a good deal of energy, too, but 
there was a womany way about her: I don’t know 
how to express it exactly. Why, sometimes over 
there at the school the boys were regular devils, but 
she could rule ’em. You see, she got ’em to love 
her ; that was all. They came to her funeral, and 
the biggest boys carried her coffin. I remember one 
chap, Abe Mosely he w r as, and he was a limb of the 
law, and nobody could control him, he was always 
fighting and getting into mischief; but when they 
buried Parna he stood there, just where that tallest 
clump of golden-rod is, and he kept his arm over his 
face all the while the minister was talking. Earth 
to earth, ashes to ashes. Poor Parna !” 

He said no more, but with a trembling hand he 
picked a bunch of the asters at his feet, and though 
they grew wild all about, these he laid on the grave. 
With a joyous shout the children burst out of school, 


BY PARNA’S GRAVE. 


187 


and then the old man and I rose and walked away 
together in silence. He did not dream that he had 
revealed to me the romance that had made his life 
at once sweet and sad ; he did not know how much 
he had told as we sat by Parna’s grave. 


MEES.’ 


Red-armed Annette gave a final glance at tlie ta- 
ble, and as the clock was striking eight summoned 
Frau Pastorin Raben’s boarders to supper. Prompt- 
ly came the two Yon Ente girls, high-born and high- 
nosed damsels, forced to make themselves teachers. 

It had been a sad blow to their pride. The elder 
was somewhat consoled by a huge carbuncle brooch 
given to her by Kaiser Wilhelm himself. The 
younger was named for a very great lady ; and 
when a letter came from the very great lady the re- 
cipient lifted her head and remembered that, what- 
ever happened, she was a Yon Ente. 

Following them close, there entered the dining- 
room a woman who painted pictures and sold them. 
Hedwig Yogel was about fifty, tall, angular, hard- 
featured. * She was reported to be very rich and 
very mean. Moreover, she was an undoubted demo- 
crat ; for when Elsa von Elite’s lady patron came to 
the house, everybody kissed the august dame’s hand ; 
except Iledwig Yogel and “the Mees.” Of course i 
the Mees, poor thing! knew no better; but Frau- 
lein Yogel! — a woman guilty of such a misdemean- 
or was capable of putting dynamite in Bismarck’s 
nightcap. She responded curtly to the greeting 
given to her by the Yon Elites, and then asked where 
the Frau Pastorin might be. 


“MEES.’ 


189 


* 

“ Here,” answered a soft voice, and the plump, 
smiling, suave mistress of the house entered and 
seated herself at the table. As she bowed her head 
to invoke a blessing on the smoked herring, the raw 
ham, the salad, the three kinds of bread, a tardy 
boarder opened the dining-room door. She stood on 
the threshold for a minute, then moved swiftly to 
her place. 

“ Good -evening, Mees,” said the Frau Pastorin, 
and “ Good-evening, Mees,” echoed the Yon Elites. 
Fraulein Yogel contented herself with a nod, and 
attacked bread and ham in hungry silence. 

“ Your walk has given you a fine color,” the Frau 
Pastorin continued, blandly. Then, turning to the 
artist, “You should paint the Mees, Fraulein. £ A 
Study of America.’ That would sound well, would 
it not?” 

The Study of America smiled a little disdainfully, 
and refused the raw ham and the herring offered to 
her by Elsa von Ente. She had refused raw ham 
and smoked herring at least a hundred times, but 
yet the Frau Pastorin protested. 

“I am sad there is nothing for you,” she mur- 
mured, in English — a language she fondly fancied 
she spoke. 

“ Oh, thefe is bread galore,” said the Mees. 

This set the hostess to thinking. Bread she un- 
derstood ; but what was bread galore ? 

« I should like to learn some American dishes,” 
she said. “ Buckwhit cakes— so, is it right ?— I have 
read of them. How you would relish them to- 
night, would you not ?” 

“ No,” said Mees, ungraciously. 


190 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


“Not?” said the Yon Entes, who talked together 
habitually. “ But what then ?” 

“ Beef — mutton — chickens,” said Mees. 

“ We have them here,” murmured the Frau Pas- 
torin, sweetly. 

“ Do you ?” said Mees, quite as sweetly. And 
Hedwig Yogel burst out laughing. The Frau Pas- 
torin bit her lip, the Yon Ente girls looked blank, 
and Annette scuttled away, smelling danger from 
afar, for she knew full well that she often received 
a vicarious reproof. 

Supper over, the table was cleared and a big Bible 
laid before the Frau Pastorin, who, as a clergyman’s ^ 
widow, felt that it was her duty to set a good exam- 
ple to the sojourners beneath her roof. Iledwig 
Yogel, however, did not stay to the reading; she 
went up to her bare, lonely rooms. They were to- 1 
tally lacking in character, for neither the woman j 
nor the artist was betrayed in their appointments. 
Everything was scrupulously clean and painfully j 
neat about them. German-fashion, the square table ’* 
was pushed close to the sofa, and held a lamp and 
four never -opened books. Here Fraulein Yogel 
seated herself, turned up the lamp -wick, and then 
crossed her long, lean, sinewy hands in her lap. The 
tall white porcelain stove made the room so warm 
that she presently rose and set a window open a lit- 
tle way. She was indeed a dangerous, unconven- 
tional creature, a Prussian who cared neither for 
great ladies nor draughts. She stood there, feeling 
the damp air of early spring blow in her face. 
From the beer-hall near by came the sound of mu- 
sic ; over the pavement rattled a cart drawn by two 


MEES” 


191 


weary dogs and followed by a yet wearier peasant- 
woman ; with a brave clink-clank of spurs and sword 
strode by a brave lieutenant. Above all these sounds 
Fraulein Yogel’s quick ear caught a light footfall 
on the bare stairs without. She crossed the parlor 
and flung open the door. 

“ Mees.” 

“ Yes, most gracious lady.” 

“ Ridiculous — ‘ gracious lady !’ Come in.” 

Mees obeyed, and took the place of honor on the 
sofa beside the painter. 

“I have a favor to ask,” she said, with a depreca- 
tory smile. “ Don’t call me Mees, please. It does 
not mean anything.” 

“Shall I say Mees Varing?” asked the painter, 
with a struggle to pronounce the name properly. 

“ Unless you like Kitty better,” said Mees. 

“Kitty — Kitty.” Fraulein Yogel repeated it 
gravely. “ Kitty.” She smiled. “ Kitty Yaring, of 
New York. Now I have it all.” 

“ No,” said Kitty, “ not quite. Of Withlacootchie, 
New York.” 

They both laughed, the Indian name was so un- 
manageable. Kitty finally wrote it down, and the 
painter pronounced it over and over again. At last 
she straightened up, and said, sternly, “ But where 
is the picture, Mees — Kitty ?” 

“Ah, you don’t want to see it,” Kitty exclaimed ; 
“ and I don’t want to show it to you. I tell you I 
have no talent. I suppose, though, patience must 
tell in the end,” she added, -half to herself. 

“ Yes, it will tell,” said the painter, grimly. “ It 
will tell— something. Go get your picture now.” 


192 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


Kitty crossed the corridor to her own little room. 
There was the picture — a sketch in oils of the best- 
known model in Diisseldorf, this time rigged out as 
a Roman peasant. The girl looked at the picture 
with a frown ; she seized it as though she would 
dash it on the floor in scorn, but, checking the im- 
pulse, she carried it to Fraulein Yogel. 

The successful painter looked at the sketch in si- 
lence fora full minute, holding it off at arm’s-length. 
Finally, she laid it down on the table, murmuring, 
“And after three years’ hard work!” 

“ Only a year’s real work,” Kitty broke in, eager- 
ly. “ I have only been here a year, you know ; and 
those two years at home I ought not to count, for I 
did not work then as I do now.” 

“Why not?” asked Fraulein Yogel, sharply. " And 
Kitty changed color. 

“Ah, one must not ask questions,” Fraulein Yogel 
remarked; “but one can have plenty of suspicions. 
I dare say you were in love, and, as love failed, you 
have taken to art. So it goes with women. Every- 
thing but marriage is a pis-aller.” 

Kitty half rose ; the stray arrow had sped home, 
and it rankled in a new wound. 

“I am a woman myself,” added Fraulein Yogel, 
with a droll smile that melted the girl’s anger in an 
instant. 

Kitty dropped down on the sofa. “Well,” she 
said, gayly, “ I grant that I was in love once on a 
time; but that is all past. Kow I want to be a 
painter. Listen: I have not much money, I have 
no friends — that is, friends such as we read about 
— and I must learn to make some money. When 


“ MEES ” 


193 


I am thirty I shall begin to make money; other- 
wise — ■” 

“Yon are spending your capital” said Fraulein 
Yogel. 

“If I spent only my income I should either wear 
shoes and no clothes, or clothes and no shoes,” an- 
swered Kitty, laughing, with a little air of reckless- 
ness that sat well on her. “Besides,” she added, 
sagely, “it is well to burn one’s ships. Sink or 
swim.” 

“'But you are quite sure of swimming?” said 
Fraulein Yogel, taking up the picture again and 
looking at it closely. 

“ It is very bad,” Kitty said. 

“ Abominable,” said the painter. She drew a long 
breath and shook her head. “Abominable,” she re- 
peated, almost as though such an abominable piece 
of work demanded respect. “A ch ! You leave old 
Zw x eifarbe’s studio,” she exclaimed. “Send your ea- 
sel over to me. You w T ant to make some money? 
Good. There are many artists here in Diisseldorf 
who say I cannot paint; there is not one who will 
say I have not made money. Perhaps I can teach 
you.” And Fraulein Yogel burst out laughing, while 
Kitty stared at her in blank surprise. 

“But you have never taken pupils,” she stam- 
mered. 

“ I have never died ; but I suppose I shall,” w T as 
the response. 

And so old Zweifarbe lost a pupil — for Kitty’s 
easel w T as straightway borne on the back of a sturdy 
dienstmann to Fraulein Yogel’s studio. What a 
chatter, what a commotion it caused in the nest of 
13 


194 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


painters! They chirped and gossiped and pecked 
each other like a flock of sparrows. The Frau Pas- 
torin expressed the popular sentiment when she dis- 
cussed Iiedwig Vogel’s eccentricities. 


“ITow much a lesson?” she said, half closing one 
shrewd gray eye. “How much a lesson? Ah, she 
would not take pupils — no, no, not while she was 
Iiedwig Vogel; and der liebe Gott knows she will 
never be Iiedwig anything else. But she will make 
an exception for our dear Mees Varing* oh yes, an 
exception ! "Wait till Mees Varing’s rich American 
friends come along and buy some of the great Vo- 
gel’s pictures. You will see.” 

“But has the Mees any rich friends?” asked her 
crony the Frau Doctorin. 

And then the parson’s widow laughed in a world- 
ly way. 

“ So pretty a girl,” she said, “ so fine a complexion, 
such little feet ! And those winning ways !” 

From which it will be seen that the Frau Pas- 


torin could admire and appreciate a woman who 
was young and beautiful. So could the painters; 
but that is easier to believe. And so could the 
tight-booted lieutenants; but that is perfectly under- \ 
stood. When Kitty Waring crossed the Hof Gar- ; 
ten, even that old woman who years and years ago j 
sold little Heinrich Heine plums would point out 1 
the girl to her contemporary the venerable under- 
gardener. 

“ Hubsch ,” the old woman would growl. 

“Aber leichtsinni g * — leichtsinnig” the old man 4 
would add — for he was a misogynist. 

But Kitty was not quite leichtsinnig , although 1 




MEES . 1 


195 


she did stroll through the warden sometimes with 
Fritz Goebel, sometimes with Otlio Weiss, sometimes 
with her fellow - countryman, Joe Buckley. They 
were all young, all painters, all poor. Who cared 
what they did ? What if they sat on a bench under 
a linden-tree, and played cat’s-cradle like children? 
What if they made little excursions to Zons or to 
Xanten? What if there was a supper in Joe Buck- 
ley’s studio, and Kitty Waring and Anna van der 
Meer — a sedate creature from Rotterdam was she — 
were taught how to make a true, good bowle? Who 
cared ? In fact, all Diisseldorf cared. 

One day the Frau Pastorin called Kitty into her 
parlor. “ Dear child,” she began, “ if } r our good 
mother — ” 

“ She has been dead fifteen years,” said Kitty. 

“If your father — ” continued the Frau Pastorin. 

“He? Oh, I can’t remember him at all,” said 
Kitty. 

“ Have you no family ?” was the question that the 
Frau Pastorin put squarely. 

“ An uncle or two somewhere in Iowa,” Kitty an- 
swered. “An aunt brought me up, and then died, 
poor thing!” A smile flitted across Kitty’s face, 
and tears sprang to her eyes; but her questioner 
saw only the smile. The world is full of such pur- 
blind folk. 

“Where were you last night so late?” she said, 
acridly. 

Kitty turned on the plump little woman and 
looked down at her. 

“ When Miss Smythe told me that I should find 
a pleasant home here, she made a sad mistake,” was 


196 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


the irrelevant answer that Mees gave. It puzzled 
the Frau Pastorin for full a week. Then Iledwig 
Yogel and Mees paid their honest debts, and took up 
quarters with Frau Tiseli, in the Rosenstrasse. 

“ It is much pleasanter here,” cried Kitty, as she 
moved about the parlor, transforming the common- 
place aspect of the room. “And it is cheap, too. 
I thought Frau Tiseli would ask more than Frau 
Raben.” 

“ It is less because we club together,” said Franlein 
Yogel. 

Kitty might have suspected something if her new 
friend had not had the name of being so close-fisted. 
Who would dream that Hedwig* Yogel could be free- 
handed ? — she who would beat a gemiXse frau out of 
two cents ; she who refused to subscribe to the fund 
for painters’ widows, declaring that it was as likely 
she would leave a widow as be left one. She was 
not, susceptible, she cared naught for sweet smiles and 
gentle ways. That she, a gaunt, grim, brusque wom- 
an of fifty, could suddenly feel all the stifled mother- 
love within her spring up — that was preposterous, 
the vain imagining of a romancer. 

They worked together, these two, in Iledwig Yo- 
gel’s studio, and Kitty strove to make up for her 
lack of talent by her abundance of patience. 

“Why did you decide to be a painter?” Franlein 
Yogel asked her one day. 

“Because I had a start in that line,” Kitty an- 
swered. “If I had had a start in music I should 
have tried to play or sing. I wonder if I could 
sing ? They say everybody has a voice. People are 
just like fields: plough ’em up, plant cabbages, plant 


“ MEESJ 


107 


potatoes, you can raise some sort of a crop. IIow 
do you happen to be a painter?” 

Hedwig Yogel paused, palette in one hand, brush 
in the other. “ Because I would rather paint than 
eat,” she answered. 

“ That is genius,” said Kitty, solemnly. “ I would 
rather cat. That is lack of genius. But because I 
want to eat I paint. That is— what would you call 
that?” 

“ You have a daub of ochre on your nose,” said 
Fraulein Yogel. 

“Any way,” Kitty remarked, after a while, “if 
worse came to worst I could teach. There is Ger- 
man. Now, I really speak German well, don’t I ? 
I could teach that.” 

“Oh, you have the gift o’ gab!” said the painter. 
“But you will be married, sure.” 

A long silence followed. “ I am twenty - four,” 
said Kitty. 

“There is no safety for you this side of the grave,” 
said Fraulein Yogel. 

“I may be married, but I doubt it,” Kitty contin- 
ued. “I — ” And then she dropped her brushes, 
flung herself prone on the floor, and burst into pas- 
sionate tears. Iledwig Yogel did not try to comfort 
her, but she knelt beside her, and put her strong right 
arm about the girl’s quivering shoulders. At last 
Kitty sat up, and brushed back her tangled hair. 

“Every day I think of him,” she said. “Every 
day I hope, I pray he will come. I watch for the 
postman — I have watched for him so long. He 
never brings me a letter, but my heart stops beating 
when lie draws near the house. When he rings the 


198 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


bell, when the servant comes np the stairs, I shut my 
eyes. I can almost believe I have the letter in my 
hand. I almost see the words. But there is never 
a letter — there never can be. Oh, I — ” She rose 
and walked to and fro. “I am to blame, ’’she added, 
laying her hand on Fraulein Vogel’s shoulder. “I 
wronged him by my suspicion, my petty jealousy; 
then I ran away from him, and expected him to 
roam over Europe trying to find me. I hid myself 
from him, and I am eating my heart out because he 
does not come.” 

“ Suppose,” said Fraulein Vogel, “ that he is seek- 
ing for you now ?” 

Kitty’s wet eyes shone for a moment. u I am not 
worth that,” she said. 

“ But if he loves you ?” 

“ Oh, he loves me, I know !” she exclaimed. 

“ And I doubted him. I thought all manner of 
base thoughts, and I told him of them to his face — 
to him, the noblest, dearest — and he never reproached 
me. Do you wonder I am ashamed to write to him ? 
Do you wonder I dare not ask his pardon?” 

“ If he loves you he would forgive anything,” said 
Fraulein Vogel. 

The room had grown dark, and they mechanically 
washed their brushes, cleaned their palettes, and 
made ready to go home. As they crossed the Hof 
Garten, two or three young painters joined them, j 
and the talk ran on gayly. Fraulein Vogel had heard j 
Kitty’s laugh ring out many a time before, but never 
until now did she hear the sad note that dimmed the 
sweetness of it. The young men turned away at 
last. 


“ mees; 


“ To - morrow, then, at eight,” sang out Otlio 
Weiss. 

“ Until to-morrow,” cried the others. 

“ Until to-morrow,” Kitty echoed. “ Always to- 
morrow,” she added, softly, to herself. 

“I do not understand,” said Franlein Vogel, going 
back to the talk in the studio. 

“ I was jealous,” Kitty answered, simply. “ He 
was above me in station — ” 

“I thought there was no rank in America,” said 
Franlein Vogel. 

“ Then you cannot understand how a big trades- 
man scorns a little one,” Kitty rejoined. “My aunt 
kept a shop, but she would never let me help her sell 
pins and needles and tape. Ho, I must go to school 
with girls whose fathers sold pins by the ton instead 
of by the paper — or by the pound as you do here. 
II is father sold them by the ton — a mere matter of 
big and little. The family was reconciled to me 
after a while. You see, the family had to be rec- 
onciled, for Frank did not care what they said to 
him.” 

“He loved you,” said Franlein Vogel. 

“ Yes, but they wanted him to love somebody else. 
Perhaps he would have done so if I had not come in 
his way. Perhaps he would have married the right 
girl — a limp, languid creature, with money enough 
to build a cathedral like the one at Cologne. She 
.made the trouble. They said he was tired of me, 
that he repented his impetuosity ; and I heard it 
all, and I grew jealous — jealous of nothing. I re- 
proached him, told him that he wanted her and her 
money. Then came the crash. My aunt died. I 


200 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


had a chance to come to Europe with some people, 
and I did not even bid him good-bye. Now I ex- 
pect him to write to me — to find me.” 

She laughed a little as she said this. 

“Some day,” said Fraulein Yogel. “If he loves 
you,” she added. 

“I doubted him,” Kitty said, “and I deserve all 
this. Ah, if you knew him, if you saw him, you 
would know what a fool I was !” 

They had reached the house by this time, and as 
Kitty opened the door, she added, “ I must write 
soon. I must hear something about him. What 
may not have happened in a year? Perhaps he is 
dead.” 

She did not mention her lover again to Fraulein 
Vogel, except once when she showed her his por- 
trait; and the sharp-eyed painter looked at the 
frank, manly face a long time. 

“ Write to him, you foolish woman,” she said. 

“Not yet. I will wait a little longer,” Kitty re- 
joined. 

The summer wore away. In August they went 
for a fortnight to a little place near Remagen — Bad 
Neunahr it is called — and here Kitty’s eyes were 
opened, and she suddenly awoke to the fact that her 
new friend was no ordinary friend. 

“ You need not worry about money,” said Frau- 
lein Vogel. “If you don’t learn how to make it, 
you know how to spend it. I could never learn that 
myself.” 

But in the autumn Kitty only worked the harder, 
believing with all her heart that patience would 
make a respectable picture-selling painter out of a 


MEES. 


201 


Chinese mandarin. When the gray dawn stole in at 
the window she sprang out of bed, dressed, and was 
off to the studio for an hour before breakfast. She 
begrudged the time spent for dinner, she bemoaned 
a dark day, and she laid her brushes down reluctant- 
ly in the twilight. In the evening she wanted to go 
to the theatre, to a concert, to a supper. Such as 
she find plenty of companions, and from time to 
time Diisseldorf raised its hands over her doings. 
Fraulcin Yogel watched and waited in a sort of 
patient agony, but at last, not without deep reflec- 
tion, she wrote a letter to Kitty’s sweetheart. She 
read his name on the back of a photograph, she 
knew well how to spell the name of the town, she 
knew the town was near New York, she knew New 
York was in North America, and she had to buy an 
extra big envelope to hold the whole address. But 
the letter was a terrible thing, and a happy thought 
came to her. She made a little picture of Kitty — 
a perfect little picture — and beneath it she wrote 
name and address. That was better than a thou- 
sand letters. Carefully she did it up, placing tissue- 
paper above and beneath the card - board, and lay- 
ing it tenderly in a white box. Surely it could not 
go astray, unless all the post-office men were blind; 
but, to make sure, she would register it, if that were 
possible. All must be done without Kitty’s knowl- 
edge, and the touch of mystery made the romance 
the sweeter. One fine day she sallied forth to send 
the little portrait on its way. She entered the Ilof 
Garten, sauntered down the Linden Allee, thinking 
all the while how delightfully the comedy would 
end. Her own part, as good fairy of the play, 


202 


CABIN AND GONDOLA. 


pleased her too, and she smiled to herself as she 
strayed off from the All^e, and seating herself on a 
bench that was well screened from prying eyes, she 
gave herself up to reverie. Of course the lover 
would come, of course he would carry Kitty off; but 
Fraulein Yogel did not mean to be left far behind. 
She would look after Kitty, for the foolish, impetu- 
ous creature would need at least two people to keep 
her out of mischief. 

“ Frank.” 

Some one uttered the name, and Fraulein Yogel 
peered through the leaves. Sitting near was a pale, 
sweet -faced woman, drawing figures in the gravel 
with the tip of her parasol. 

“Frank,” she repeated, “shall we go home?” 

“ Do you mean Withlacootchie or the hotel?” was 
the answer. 

The man had his back to Fraulein Yogel,but now 
he turned, and she recognized him. The portrait 
had lied a little, as portraits will lie, and yet he was 
a handsome man enough, after all. 

“ Home or the hotel, dear ?” Ilis voice was very 
gentle, and his smile tender. “Are you tired of 
wandering?” he added. 

“ Oh no,” she said, “ but whither shall we wan- 
der ?” 

“Up-stairs, down-stairs, in my lady’s chamber,” he 
rejoined. “ Last summer the Tyrol ; last winter Ita- 
ly ; this summer Switzerland; now — where? We 
are making a long honeymoon of it.” 

“ And are you tired ?” she asked. 

He gave a rapid glance up and down the Alice, 
then stooped and kissed her. 


MEES.’ 


203 


Fraulein Vogel bad not understood all the words, 
the caress she saw. She rose and went slowly home- 
ward. In the tiny Diissel tlie swans were floating 
majestically, and standing there on the bank, she 
tore the box and the picture into scraps and flung 
them into the water. The swans hastened after 
the bits of white paper; they fought and screamed 
over them, and the victor proudly bore away a 
fragment from his envious mates, only to discover 
that it was worthless. 


TIIE END, 



OATS OR WILD OATS? 


Common-sense for Young Men. By J. M. Buckley, LL.I). 
pp. xiv., 306. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

It is a good book, which ought to do good on a large scale. . . . Such 
passages as those headed Tact, Observation, Reflection, Self-command, and 
the like, may be read and re-read many times with advantage. — Brooklyn 
Union. 

A book which should be recommended to the consideration of every 
young man who is prepai’ing to go into a business career or any other in 
which he may aspire to become an honorable, useful, and prosperous citi- 
zen. . . . Dr. Buckley knows the trials and the temptations to which 
young men are exposed, and his book, while written in most agreeable 
language, is full of excellent counsel, and illustrations are given by an- 
ecdotes and by examples which the author has observed or heard of in 
his own experience. Besides general advice, there are especial chapters 
relating to professional, commercial, and other occupations. So good a 
book should be widely distributed, and it will tell on the next generation. 
— Philadelphia Bulletin. 

It is a model manual, and will be as interesting to a bright, go-ahead 
boy as a novel. — Philadelphia Record. 

The scheme of the book is to assist young men in the choice of a 
profession or life pursuit by explaining the leading principles and char- 
acteristics of different branches of business, so that the reader may see 
what his experiences are likely to be, and thus be enabled to make an 
intelligent selection among the many avenues of labor. In order to make 
his work accurate and comprehensive, Dr. Buckley has consulted mer- 
chants, lawyers, statesmen, farmers, manufacturers, men in all walks of 
life, and specialists of every description, visiting and examining their es- 
tablishments, offices, and studios. From the knowledge thus gained he 
has prepared the greater part of his book The remainder is given to 
general advice, and contains the old maxims familiar to all young men 
from the time of Poor Richard. Success is won by good behavior, intelli- 
gence, and industry. These are the “ Oats.” The “ Wild Oats ” of lazi. 
ness, carelessness, and dissipation bring ruin, disaster, and misery. The 
work is likely to attract readers from its practical value as a compendium 
of facts relating to the various departments of labor rather than on ac- 
count of its moral injunctions. It cannot help being very useful to the 
class of young men for whom it is intended, as also to parents who have 
boys to start out into the world. — N. Y. Times. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

£3?“ IlAr.rEit & Brothers will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid , to 
any part of the United States or Canada , on receipt of the price. 


“AS WE WENT MARCHING ON.” 


A Story of tlie War. By G. W. Hosmek, M.D. pp. 
310. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. 

A skilful blending of plot with descriptions of active operations in the 
field. An attractive book. — JY. Y. Sun. 

It seems to be all true excepting, perhaps, the names of the hei’oes and 
heroines. The author’s battle sketches are good, his characters natural, 
and his conversations neatly managed. — N. Y. Journal of Commerce. 

A vivid, somewhat exciting story, in which the experiences of army life 
are told in a wav that makes them sound like the author’s own, and in 
which the narrative is conducted by Mars and Cupid alternately. — Phila- 
delphia Inquirer. 

This is really a fine story, in which marching and fighting and love arc 
blended, yet one never interferes with the other. ... Of the picturesque- 
ness of camp life, the rude comfort of the bivouac, the hardships of the 
march, there is not in all the war history with which we are acquainted 
any such forceful description as in this little volume. — Rochester Herald. 

Interesting, both as a novel and as a description of the actual life of the 
soldier — the discomforts of rainy nights, muddy roads, and a hungry 
bivouac in a country filled with foes. . . . The various military incidents — 
-the night marches, the annihilation of infantry surprised by calvary, the 
gathering roar and surging tide of a great battle — are given with the en- 
thralling energy peculiar to the eye-witness. — Commercial Bulletin , Boston. 

A well-told soldier’s romance, commencing in the Blue Ridge wilderness 
of Virginia about the time of Pope’s disastrous campaign, and ending with 
Sheridan’s ride up the valley and converting defeat into victory at Fisher 
Hill. ... A war story superior to any with which we are acquainted. It is 
admirable as to plot and characters, as to the picturesque and effective 
background of military life, and as to its pure, graceful, and vigorous 
English. — Pittsburgh Post. 

I)r. Ilosmer has written a spirited story that will interest old campaign- 
ers on both sides of the rebellion conflict. The clash and roar of battle 
are distinctly heard in some of his chapters. A good story for the home 
camp-fire. — Troy Press. 

This is a well-written and interesting story, in which domestic incidents 
and home affections blend with the roar of battle and the taking of pris- 
oners. The writer shows considerable knowledge of the actions and posi- 
tions on both sides in Virginia, where the scene is laid. — Brooklyn Eagle. 

A well-told, interesting story, with just enough of war, deceit, and love 
in it to be heartily enjoyable. — Hartford Post. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS New York. 

II.vun.it & Bkotiif.es will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid, to any 
part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 


THE BREAD-WINNERS 

A Social Study. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. 


One of the strongest and most striking stories of the last ten years. . . . 
The work of a very clever man ; it is told with many lively strokes of hu- 
mor ; it sparkles with epigram; it is brilliant with wit. . . , The chief 
characters in it are actually alive ; they are really flesh and blood ; they 
are at once true and new ; and they are emphatically and aggressively 
American. The anonymous author has a Arm grip on American character. 
He has seen, and he has succeeded in making us see, facts and phases of 
American life which no one has put into a book before. . . . Interesting, 
earnest, sincere; fine in its performance, and finer still in its promise. — 
Saturday Review , London. 

A worthy contribution to that American novel-literature which is at the 
present day, on the whole, ahead of our own.— Pall Mall Gazette , London. 

Praise, and unstinted praise, should be given to “ The Bread-Winners.” 
— N. Y. Times. 

It is a novel with a plot, rounded and distinct, upon which every episode 
has a direct bearing. . . . The book is one to stand nobly the test of im- 
mediate re-reading. — Critic , N. Y. 

It is a truly remarkable book. — N. Y. Journal of Commerce. 

As a vigorous, virile, well-told American story, it is long since we have 
had anything as good as “ The Bread-Winners.” — Philadelphia Bulletin. 

Every page of the book shows the practised hand of a writer to whom 
long use has made exact literary expression as easy and spontaneous as 
the conversation of some of those gifted talkers who are at once the 
delight and the envy of their associates. ... We might mention many 
scenes which seem to us particularly strong, but if we began such a 
catalogue we should not know where to stop. — N. Y. Tribune. 

Within comparatively few pages a story which, as a whole, deserves to 
be called vigorous, is tersely told. . . . The author’s ability to depict the 
mental and moral struggles of those wdio are poor, and who believe them- 
selves oppressed, is also evident in his management of the strike and in 
his delineation of the characters of Sam Sleeny, a carpenter’s journeyman, 
and Ananias Offit, the villain of the story. „ . . The characters who bring 
into play and work out the author’s ideas are all well drawn, and their in- 
dividuality maintained and developed with a distinctness that shows inti- 
mate familiarity with the subject, as w r ell as unquestionable ability in deal- 
ing with it. — N. Y. Evening Telegram. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

SW Harper & Brothers will send the above work by mail, postage prepiaid, to any 
2>art of the United States or Canada , on receipt of the price. 


BEN-HDR : A TALE OF TIE CHRIST. 

By Lew. Wallace. New Edition, pp. 552. 16 mo, Cloth, 

$1 50. 

Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of this 
romance does not often appear in works of fiction. . . . Some of Mr. Wal- 
lace’s writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The scenes de- 
scribed in the New Testament are rewritten with the power and skill of 
' an accomplished master of style. — JY. Y. Times. 

Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at the 
beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and brilliant. . . . 
We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we witness a sea- 
fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Roman galley, domestic in- 
teriors at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among the tribes of the desert; pal- 
aces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman youth, the houses of pious 
families of Israel. There is plenty of exciting incident; everything is 
animated, vivid, and glowing. — iV. Y. Tribune. 

From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader’s interest 
will be kept at the highest pitch, and the novel will be pronounced by all 
one of the greatest novels of the day. — Boston Post. 

It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and there 
is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclatu^ etc., to greatly 
strengthen the semblance. — Boston Commonwealth. 

“Ben-IIur” is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong. 
Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is laid, 
and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to realize the 
nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Roman life at 
Antioch at the time of our Saviour’s advent. — Examiner , N. Y. 

It is really Scripture history of Christ’s time clothed gracefully and 
delicately in the flowing and loose drapery of modern fiction. . . . Few late 
works of fiction excel it in genuine ability and interest. — N. Y. Graphic. 

One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real and 
warm as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and most heroic 
chapters of history. — Indianapolis Journal. 

The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with un- 
wonted interest by many readers who are weajy of the conventional novel 
and romance. — Boston Journal. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

The above work sent by mail , postage prepaid , to any part of the United States 
or Canada , on receipt of the price. 


UPON A CAST. 


A Novel. By Ciiaki.otte Dunning, pp. 330. 1 Gmo,. 

Cloth, $1 00. 

It embodies throughout the expressions of genuine American frank- 
ness, is well conceived, well managed, and brought to a delightful 
and captivating close. — Albany Press. 

The author writes this story of American social life in an interest- 
ing manner. . . . The style of the writing is excellent, and the dia- 
logue clever. — N. Y. Times. 

This story is strong in plot, and its characters are drawn with a 
firm and skilful hand. They seem like real people, and their acts 
and words, their fortunes and misadventures, are made to engage the 
reader’s interest and sympathy. — Worcester Daily Spy. 

The character painting -is very well done. . . . The sourest cynic 
that ever sneered at woman cannot but find the little story vastly 
entertaining. — Commercial Bulletin, Boston. 

The life of a semi-metropolitan village, with its own aristocracy, 
gossips, and various other qualities of people, is admirably por- 
trayed. . . . The book fascinates the reader from the first page to 
the Ust. — Boston Traveller. 

The plot has been constructed with no little skill, and the charac- 
I ters — all of them interesting and worthy of acquaintance— are por- 
trayed with great distinctness. The book is written in an entertain- 
ing and vivacious style, and is destined to provide entertainment for 
a large number of readers. — Christian at Work, N. Y. 

One of the best — if not the very best — of the society novels of the 
season. — Detroit Free Press. 

Of peculiar interest as regards plot, and with much grace and 
] freshness of style. — Brooklyn Times. 

The plot has been constructed with no little skill, and the characters 
| — all of them interesting and worthy of acquaintance — are portrayed 
t with great distinctness. — Episcopal Recorder, Philadelphia. 

A clever and entertaining novel. It is wholly social, and the 
theatre is a small one ; but the characters are varied and are drawn 
with a firm hand ; the play of human passion and longing is well- 
defined and brilliant ; and the movement is effective and satisfac- 
tory. . . . The love story is as good as the social study, making alto- 
1 gether an uncommonly entertaining book for vacation reading. — 

| Wilmington (Del.) Morning News. 

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

j 4ST Harper & Brothers will send the above work 'by mail , postage prepaid , to 
any part of the United States or Canada , on receipt of the price. 


HARPER'S MAGAZINE FOR 1886. 


The December Number will begin the Seventy-second Volume of Harper’s Maga- 
zine. It is the purpose of the publishers to make the volumes for the new year of 
unprecedented interest and importance, and they have made arrangements which jus- 
tify confidence in the success of their undertaking. They respectfully invite public 
attention to some of the leading attractions of the forth coming volumes. 

The two novels now in course of publication — Miss Woolson’s “ East Angels ” and 
Mr. Howklls’s “Indian Summer” — easily take the foremost place in current serial 
fiction. These will run through several Numbers, and, upon their completion, will be 
followed by stories from Mrs. Dinah Mclock Craik, author of “John Halifax, Gentle- 
man,” and R. D. Blackmore, author of “ Lorna Doone. ” 

The great literary event of the year will be the publication of a series of papers — 
taking the shape of a story, and depicting characteristic features of American Society 
— written by Charles Dudley Warner, aud illustrated by C. S. Reinhart — the materi- 
als for which have been gathered by the author and artist during the past summer at 
the principal American pleasure resorts, North aud South. 

Beginning in the January Number, a New Editorial Department, discussing topics 
suggested by current literature, will be contributed by Mr. W. D. Howells. 

OTHER FEATURES, LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 

Among other attractions for the year may be mentioned the continuation of the 
series of papers on “ Great American Industries ” aud “ American Cities the contin- 
uation of Mr. E. A. Abbey’s series of illustrations for “She Stoops to Conquer;” 
“Sketches of the Avon,” by Alfred Parsons; papers on “The Navies of Europe,” by 
Sir Edward Reed, illustrated; curious studies of American Colonial History, hy _ Lio- 
nel T. W. Higginson; sketches of “ Pioneer Life” in Tennessee and Kentucky, by Ed- 
mund Kirke and Colonel John Mason Brown, illustrated; more sketches of “ Frontier 
Military Life,” by R. F. Zogbaum, with the author’s illustrations; illustrated papers on 
the “ Blue Grass Region ” and “Cumberland Mountain Folk,” by James Lane Allen; 
“Southern Sketches,” by Rebecca Harding Davis; important “Social Studies,” by 
Dr. Richard T. Ely; studies in Natural History, illustrated by Ap.fred Parsons, Will- 
iam Hamilton Gibson, and J. C. Beard; illustrated sketches ol adventure connected 
with the hunting of “Large Game in America,” etc. 

While Harper’s Magazine has in England a larger circulation than any other peri- 
odical of its class, it will be the aim of its publishers and conductors not only to make 
it representative of what is best in American literature and art, but also— as indicated 
in the above announcements— to give especial attention to American subjects, selected 
with reference to their popular interest. 


HARPER’S PERIODICALS. 


HARPER’S MAGAZINE Per Year 

HARPER’S WEEKLY 

HARPER’S BAZAR 

HARPER’S YOUNG PEOPLE 

HARPER’S FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY (52 

Numbers) “ 

HARPER’S HANDY SERIES (52 Numbers) ... 


$4 00 
4 00 
4 00 
2 00 

10 00 
15 00 


Subscriptions to any of the Periodicals will begin with the Number current at the 
time of receipt of order, except in cases where the subscriber otherwise directs. 

Remittances should be made by Post-Office Money Order or Draft, to avoid risk ol 
loss. 


HARPER & BROTHERS, Franklin Square, New York. 


Address, 

















' ‘ v 

«. -> k ° y *iio, 

<e- ^ .W*’- & 



-»V # V % .^SP." „• , 

•"• * % ''**' </\« l ' * * ,"■% ‘"° * ‘ V' c.0 ' 

s ** n! ^ * 

“ /r 



V 

o 0 X 


^ ^>. y 
^ s 

O ^ v CL * ^ 

O. * g , -\ * x \> X 

0 ‘ o . V * s ' ❖ ^ 

N ?TO>». S 

Al <V 



- ^ ^ 




<1 

x°°* -« 

cA 

Za. ' ± 1 S (V 5 C> P 

A * 3 N 0 ° » 

^ -<V * V * ^ 

t~ <o c, * Wi> . 

<-> \<- 
o '</> 

Cl 



. v ; 

* x m£ V ■> 

'<-. ♦•.*•> A 0 



<r^ " y o , x * /\ 

<p av C u ” ^ * 

^ ^ S* * 

* >/. V* ' 


? » 






